


For the sake of prisoners, and the flight of birds

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Family Drama, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Politics, Post-Rescue from Thangorodrim, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fingon assailed Angband alone armed only with a harp, a bow and his own certainty that this was the right thing to do. More terrifying by far is the mire of politics and obligation that awaits him upon his return. His father wants a crown, his cousins want their brother back and Maedhros himself wants everyone to believe he’s fine (he’s really not). Fingon just wants everyone to be sensible for five minutes or, failing that, a problem that can be solved with courage and the edge of a blade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ради узника в башне и полёта птиц](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13888410) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



Fingon had thought himself inured to the sight of injury; frostbite on the Ice that turned entire limbs to blackened, swollen ruins; hunting accidents that had set writhing tendrils of viscera crawling across the green grass of Valinor. He’d cut off Maedhros’ hand himself, steeled against the blood, the screams, the wet tearing of sinew.

But there was a horrible intimacy to watching the healers set to work upon his cousin, stitching the wreckage he’d carried off the mountain back into something like a person, that was somehow worse than blood and pain.  

“-can’t just ‘pop’ it back in after so long,” said a woman whose name he was sure he knew. “Until we know the extent of the damage we risk making things worse.”

‘Remembers subjects’ names’ came only a little after ‘can perform deeds of great valour’ on the list of requirements for a prince. Still, nothing came to mind and he stared at her cold-weathered face with an increasing sense of disorientation.

“If you’re proposing we just leave it-” said another, a girl who would have been no more than an apprentice in Valinor, raised up by necessity to fill dead men’s boots upon the long march.

“It’s been left thirty years,” said the senior healer. “We’ll keep it immobilized and anything more invasive can wait. We’ll need him conscious to assess the nerve damage anyway.”

The smell in the tent - unwashed bodies and abattoirs - caught in his throat and set him gagging. Still, he would not leave; Fingon the Valiant, of the line of Finwë, who had braved ice and orcs and the treacherous peaks of Thangorodrim, only to turn faint at the sight of a little blood?

“Go outside, my lord,” the younger healer told him and, mutely, he shook his head. “For the sake of his dignity if not your own,” she insisted.  

It was the excuse he needed. He went. What wouldn’t he do for Maedhros’ sake?

***

“We’ll have to send to his brothers,” Fingon said wearily. He had gone straight from the healers’ tent to his father’s, not pausing to change his clothes. He regretted it now, looking back at the ashy footprints he’d tracked across the carpet.

“Do you think they don’t know already?” said Aredhel, who had come also, wrinkling her nose and gathering her white mantle away from him. “Swooping into camp atop the king of eagles wasn’t subtle.” Ever since their childhood, she’d resented it when he went off to hunt, ford rivers, climb mountains and left his little sister behind. Small wonder she was angry at him  now.

“And the sons of Fëanor are likely to be even less so,” said their father. “They’ll demand we give him over into their protection.” Fingon had expected anger from him as well, for abandoning his duties, for the risk he’d taken, for bringing one of Fëanor’s sons into their camp, but his father had greeted their return with honour and sympathy. Fingon was still waiting to find out just how much trouble he was in.

“They can’t move him,” he said.

“I concur,” said Fingolfin. “His health aside, I would fear for my nephew under their care.” He had embraced Fingon when he first staggered from Thorondor’s back and still wore the same stained robes but despite that his face was calm and his voice was smooth and measured as it had ever been when he spoke before the courts of distant Tirion.

Fingon was too tired for politics. “Speak plainly, Father.”

“Thirty years and none of them bestirred themselves to do what you accomplished in a matter of days. Thirty years in which Maglor ruled as High King.”

“He never claimed the title.” Maglor had not looked like a usurper triumphant when Fingon had last seen him, before leaving on his quest. He had looked worn, grey eyes as flat as Lake Mithrim, and had not disputed Fingon’s accusations of cowardice and treachery, he who could once have convinced his cousin black was white had he a mind to try.

“Only the power.”

“We’ve heard gossip since you left on your wild eagle chase,” said Aredhel. “Maedhros did not take part in the burning, did you know that? He alone stood aside. I wonder what his brothers made of that.”

“Say what you will of the sons of Fëanor, but say not that they are disloyal,” Fingon said, his voice rising. The knowledge struck him like a blow but he was too tired to unpick why. “Our lives would be a good deal easier if they hadn’t followed their mad father against all sense. Do you think they would betray their brother lightly?”

Their father shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “Either way, our most prudent course of action is to hold him. He will be safe from treachery and, if we are wrong, it will not hurt for us to have some extra leverage.”

“You mean for him to be our captive? After everything he’s suffered-”

“Do you forget what our people suffered?” Their father smiled his politician’s smile, his voice still calm. “He will be cared for, treated as befits his station, but his welfare is not - will never be - my priority. Before all else, we must keep our people safe.”

“I did this to unite our people, not to bring about yet more infighting over a crown,” Fingon said wearily. It has all seemed so simple when the plan had first come to him but now, fogged with exhaustion, he wondered how he had ever thought it could help. The tent swam grey around him like the lake had broken its banks and risen up to drown them all.

“Are you sure you didn’t do it for pretty red hair and a skillful tongue?” snapped Aredhel. She bit suddenly at her lip. “No, I’m sorry, that was beneath us both. Rather, our cousin has a way with words. If anyone can put this matter to rest, it will be him. However…”

“Please,” said Fingon. “No more howevers! If I’d have known the rescue would cause this much trouble-”

“You would have acted much the same,” said his father, smiling wearily. It was a true smile this time and Fingon’s heart eased just a little.

“ _However_ ,” said Aredhel. “If he dies while in our care, the Fëanorians will use it against us to justify...well, whatever they want.”

“He won’t,” said Fingon. He hadn’t slept throughout his journey into Angband, had kept himself going on pure adrenaline and fear and found himself struggling, despite the tension, to suppress a yawn.

“He might,” said Aredhel. “ _You_ may trust in prayer and ploughing blindly forwards but we don’t all have that luxury.”

“Don’t bicker,” said their father. “If Morgoth couldn’t manage it in thirty years of torment, I believe our chances good. You’ve done a great thing for us, Fingon-”

“A _valiant_ thing,” put in his sister.

“Valiant and indescribably rash - we shall have words about that later - but for now you must rest. Know that I am proud of you.” His father clasped his shoulder.

Fingon bowed and, taking the dismissal for what it was, staggered his way towards his own tent and his bed.

***

The Fëanorians came wearing their father’s star upon their surcoats, armoured in gleaming mail and with swords upon their belts. Their banners snapped at the air behind them and their tall, proud horses kicked up sparks upon the stones of the lakeshore. They were garbed for war. His father was right; his cousins never had been subtle.

When they dismounted and removed their helms, Fingon was relieved to see it was Curufin and Amras that had come. He cared not for Fëanor’s conniving favourite and Amras looked more like his brother’s ghost than like himself but at least neither was likely to scream imprecations or start a fight right there before the gates as Caranthir or Celegorm might have.

“Well met,” he called to them.

“Cousin,” said Curufin. “Where is your liege?”

“My lord father is with his counci-”

“You may give him our regards but it is not our uncle we come to see. Where is Maedhros Fëanorion, High King of the Noldor?”

Fingon had hoped for at least the pretense of civility even if he had not expected it. He gestured behind him to the camp and the hasty palisade that surrounded it. “He lies within; I have come to guide you. My men will take your horses and your weapons.”

Curufin’s sword came soundless from its sheath - it had been crafted by his father, how could it be otherwise? - and he held it up loosely before him in a posture that was quite pointedly not a threat. He smiled his father’s smile, thin and fey. “Oh will they?” he said softly.

Fingon folded his arms. He had never feared his cousins and wasn’t about to let childish posturing change his mind. “Would you bring that into a sickroom? Do you not think your brother has seen enough of blades?”

“I wouldn’t know; you have kept us here gossiping when we might have already gone to his side,” Curufin said coldly but Fingon’s shot had struck its mark; he twirled his sword and presented it hilt-first to the nearest guard. “Let us waste no more time then. We will cater to your paranoia if we must.”

They would have hidden knives no doubt, cunningly wrought, concealed as buckles and hair ornaments, but Fingon didn’t order them searched. He’d made his point and with less of a struggle than he’d expected.

“This way,” he said.

The camp was well ordered despite the cobbled together nature of their equipment. Already latrines had been dug and stables erected for the few horses that had survived the crossing. He watched his cousins scrutinizing the fortifications, part intelligence gathering, part professional interest.

“What hide is this?” Curufin asked, frowning speculatively at their tents. He reached out to stroke the treated skin with an expression of such avid interest Fingon almost forgot how much he disliked him.

“Ever the craftsman,” he said, trying for joviality. “It’s seal. Mammals that live beneath the Ice. If you wish to study it more closely, I will make you a gift of one of the pelts.”

“No need,” Curufin said, drawing back. “I was merely curious.”

“How is he?” Amras blurted, seeming startled by his own words. They were the first that Fingon had heard from him since Valinor and still he wished he hadn’t spoken.

“Alive,” was all he could think to say. He had to bite his tongue lest he add, ‘no thanks to you.’

“That well?” Curufin said dryly, no doubt guessing what he hadn’t said. “Has he spoken of it? Any intelligence he might have gathered-”

“He’s not yet woken.” In truth he had awoken several times but never to coherency. The fancies that they were back in Tirion were harmless, for all that Maedhros’ smile and murmured ‘Fingon’ had twisted like a knife, but there were other, uglier delusions. He had once managed to drag himself out of bed and halfway to the door before the guards noticed and returned him to the pallet while he screamed and bit and struck at them with a fist he did not have. He’d reopened sewn up wounds and Hadlath had needed stitches of her own for the chunk torn from her hand. After that they had no choice but to strap him to the bed but it would not do to let his brothers see him so. Fingon misliked that they were drugging him almost as much as he misliked the leather straps, though at least those he could cut through. He had seen his cousin’s eyes gone blank and feral, blood oozing dark and sluggish between broken stitches, and could hardly argue against the necessity of it all.

Curufin’s nostrils flared with a swiftly indrawn breath and Fingon hoped he had not seen the lie. “How badly- No. Let’s not waste words when I can see for myself. Lead on.”

They were already working on a more permanent building but for now their hospital was a series of interconnected tents. They’d placed Maedhros in one of the outlying ones, to give him privacy they said, and placed guards at the entrance. They bowed and stepped aside at Fingon’s approach, lifting the tent flaps with careful, gracious choreography.

Inside the smell was not so bad as it had been the first day, when it had driven Fingon to flee. Still there was the reek of blood and fever-sweat, but the tent had been aired out and the clean, pungent smells of medicinal herbs masked the worst of it.

Very little could mask the ruin of the still figure in the bed. The healers had shaved off his hair; it had been rank with filth, tangled and louse-ridden but its lack threw the damage into sharper relief. The gauntness of his features, the sores, the strange sunkenness of the left side of his face - a broken cheekbone, they had said when Fingon asked, and missing teeth.

His right arm was twisted still despite being braced and padded and Fingon could not look at the place where it ended in a bandaged stump, the linen already pinked with fresh blood.

There were other injuries of course, horrible ones, but they were the showiest and it was they that elicited Curufin’s sharp hiss of breath, Amras’ startled-rabbit stiffness.

“How could- We didn’t- Why didn’t we-” In any other situation it would have been gratifying to see Curufin at a loss for words.

“We’re doing all we can for him,” Fingon said instead of reveling in it. “The worst is over and we’re assured he will survive.” Cold words, the barest crumbs of comfort, but did they deserve anything more?

“I should speak to your healers,” Curufin said, rallying. “There are things they might not have thought of.”

“They’re our best,” said Fingon, telling himself that there was no point taking it as an insult, that Curufin had been certain of his own expertise in every field since the day he first learnt to read his father’s runes.

“Nevertheless.” He must have meant it to sound firm but there was an edge of desperation to the words and Fingon could only nod his assent.

“They won’t be familiar with the local flora,” said Amras dully as his brother stalked from the tent. “He really could help.”

Fingon remembered his manners. “We would be grateful for anything you can teach us.”

Amras didn’t reply. He stepped forwards to lean over the bed, hands fluttering over forehead, breast, stump, finally alighting on Maedhros’ remaining hand. As a child, before he’d learnt to hunt, Amras had brought home young rabbits, foxcubs, downy baby birds cradled in the nest of his palms. It had been an age and half a hundred deaths since then but in that gesture Fingon saw the child his cousin had once been.

“Why does he not wake?” Amras asked softly.

Temporary, the healers had told Fingon. He will know himself again in time, when the fever breaks, when he is not mazed with drugs against the pain. “Thirty years on that mountain can’t have made for restful sleep. I imagine he needs to catch up,” he lied.

“It was what he would have wanted.”

“To be left in the Enemy’s hands? To be tortured and abused without hope of rescue? I do not doubt it. Do you think that excuses you?”

“No.”

“No,” Fingon agreed. He wished it _had_ been Caranthir or Celegorm, someone who would have thrown the first blow and given him an excuse to hit something. “When he does wake, I will tell him you were here.”

“We brought a litter,” Amras said but he might have been commenting on the weather for all the force there was behind his words.

“You won’t move him.” Not ‘can’t’. A prince should be gracious and Fingon wondered at his own rudeness while not repenting it.

“No,” Amras said. He released his brother’s hand and straightened up. “Not this time. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Fingon did not see them out, as he really should have, but drew up a camp chair beside his cousin’s bed. He could justify it as an attempt to avoid an argument with Curufin, who might take the refusal to hand over Maedhros with less equanimity than his brother. But truly he drew comfort in the steady rise of his cousin’s chest, the restless flicker of eyes beneath their lids, the uneasy twitch of fingers - five - against the blankets.

Whatever happened next, he has salvaged _something_. They could not take that away.

***

Fingon spent the rest of the day sitting at his bedside, fingers interlaced with those of his cousin’s one remaining hand, trying not to notice how thin they were, how crooked - the healers said some would need to be rebroken and reset.

He wasn’t good at idleness. Maedhros, with six younger brothers, had been the one to cluck over grazed knees and sit up by sick beds. Fingon could stay still for hours at a time upon the hunt but that was an active kind of stillness. This helpless waiting near drove him mad and so he had paced the tent and rolled bandages and read reports and, finally, left. There were fortifications to build, soldiers to drill, new lands to scout and, not only must those tasks be done, but his people must see him doing them.

The trip he left on, tracing the streams that fed the lake back towards Ered Wethrin, hadn’t been supposed to take more than a day - it was too dangerous for small groups to be out after dark in unknown lands - but then Doronor’s horse had come up lame, the weather had turned and they were all very relieved they’d packed enough supplies to set up camp for the night.

With the merry crackle of the fire and the earthy smell of root vegetables roasting in the embers it was a pleasant night despite the rain. After decades upon the ice, to lie back upon the dewy sward and feel the grit of sun warmed earth beneath one’s fingers seemed an impossible luxury. Fingon looked up at the stars and tried to put aside the tragedies, the feuds, the loves that had driven him to Beleriand and to see the land for what it was and what it could be. Such a kingdom they could build!

“Movement in the trees, my lord.”

“To arms!” Fingon leapt to his feet and tried to pretend that his heart hadn’t leapt also. Peace and tranquility had never really suited him anyway. Always he had felt most clearheaded, most himself when facing down a challenge.

He unwrapped and strung his bow, the camp bustling like an ant hill as the other scouts scrambled for their own weapons. There had been no cause to use it since Thangorodrim and he surprised himself by feeling no trepidation as he notched an arrow and sighted along it.

“On my mark,” he said as others raised their weapons. “I’d hate to shoot a Sindar and give King Thingol yet more ammunition to fling back at us.”

Along the picket line, their horses whickered and tugged at their halters; Fingon truly doubted it was Elwë’s people in the trees. Even at such a distance he was sure he could smell them, the stink of filth and festering wounds, or perhaps that was all in his head.

“There!” said Elegil. “I heard a branch break.”

“Hold,” said Fingon. “Don’t waste your arrows on shadows. Hail!” he called to the night, in Quenya then Sindarin. “Hail and well met. I am Fingon, Fingolfin’s son, come in peace. Will you come out and treat with us?” He wanted a battle, wanted it so badly his teeth ached with the clenching of his jaw, but he was a prince of the Noldor and he would not attack unprovoked, however foul the foe, however unlikely the chance at compromise.

From the woods before them and behind came laughter, rough and mocking. Many voices; more than twenty Fingon thought.

“We are outnumbered,” Ýreth murmured behind him.

“We shan’t be for long,” Fingon said brightly. “Did you forget I faced all the orcs in Angband alone? And here there are a dozen of us - it is almost unfair!”

Some of his soldiers laughed, out of duty perhaps but that was enough. He knew that they would hold.

Another branch snapped, louder and closer. The night was pierced by orange pinpricks, bright like fallen stars - the firelight did not seem so merry reflected in orc eyes.

Fingon shook rain damp braids from his face. “Draw!” he said.

Closer they came, and closer. It was not his imagine; despite the rain, the woodsmoke, the horses, he could smell the charnel house stink of them. A horse screamed in fear and Fingon could see Lossamon’s hands beginning to tremble.

“Loose!” Fingon cried.

Twelve pairs of stars winked out but there were more, always more. Fingon thought of red hair cropped short and the sound of a dagger parting sinew and he cast aside his bow and drew his sword.

He charged, not caring if he charged alone.

The orcs broke from the trees to meet him, a wave of twisted bodies and faces contorted by hate and pain. More than twenty, less than thirty. He had faced worse odds and lived.

Some orcs had crude polearms and Fingon slowed his wild sprint just in time to avoid impaling himself on a spear aimed for his chest. He broke the thrust and then stepped upon the shaft to keep the orc from raising it, letting his own blade flick up into the orc’s neck.

The orc beside it swung at him in a wild, overhead blow. Fingon raised his own blade to cover and, though his arm rang with the impact, the orc sword slide off of it like rain rolling off a roof. The deflection overbalanced his opponent and Fingon kicked out its knee to keep it that way, plunging his sword into its side as it stumbled.

Something clipped his thigh and he staggered but whatever had struck him vanished into the tumult as swiftly as it had come. The din of battle all around him now, so that, were they not wearing his father’s blue livery, he would be hard pressed to know his allies from his foes. He saw, through the haze of battle-fury, Lossamon fall to his knees and he shoved his sword through the back of the nearest orc, perhaps the one that had hurt him, perhaps not.

The smell of blood was stronger now, his face was sticky with it though he had no idea where it had come from, or if it was his own.

Another one came at him, huge and brutish, swinging a heavy, jagged blade at his neck. It was easy to step back and let the blade go whistling past his face and then, with the creature thrown off balance, step in and lay it open, shoulder to hip.

So slow these creatures were and so foolish. It almost felt unsporting.

Something barreled into him from the side and, while he got his sword up in time to cover, he was forced back, unable to bring the blade to bear. It caught at him, long grey arms wrapping around him to keep him from disengaging. _Good!_ He relaxed his wrist, punching forwards to slam the pommel of his sword into its face. Teeth flew - he could not count how many in the dark - and he drew his weapon back and punched again, again, _again_. The orc’s legs bucked and it went down, dragging Fingon with it. He let himself fall, twisting so that he landed atop it.

His sword was pulled from his grip and he let it go, drawing a knife from his belt. The orc was still alive - still alive? it’s face was _gone,_ how could it live? - struggling beneath him, filthy iron gauntlets closing about his wrist, about his throat.

His gorget was the finest steel and yet he felt it _bend_ beneath that grip. No time to wonder, no time to feel the bruising pain in his wrist, he raised his free hand and the dagger edge ran red with firelight as he brought it down into the gaping ruin of its mouth.

The orc stopped moving and Fingon rolled free of it, grabbing for his sword. He sprang to his feet and looked about but there was no more fighting to be seen. His soldiers stood about, as shakily as he, but not an orc remained upon its feet.

His hand ached and so did his side. One of the gems that had been worked into his sword hilt was gone, leaving a socket gaping like a missing tooth. He picked through the ruin of the orc’s face until he found the lost sapphire.

“Sir?” one of his soldiers said carefully from somewhere quite far behind him.

Fingon straightened, tucking the gem into a pocket and feeling foolish. His first thought should have been for his soldiers. “Is all well? Take whoever is least injured and secure the perimeter.”

“Yessir,” said the soldier and she was gone before Fingon could get a reply to his question.

He saw why shortly, almost stumbled over his answer.

Lossamon was dead, his chest stoved in, ribs jutting proud like the timbers of a hull left to rot upon the shoreline. A death Fingon had lead him to. This was why he had climbed Thangorodrim alone, this awful sense of responsibility, the wondering if he’d been smarter, faster, better- No. Not now.

“Wrap the body,” Fingon ordered. “With all due respect. We’ll bring him back to the lake to be interred.” It was an undreampt of luxury to bury their dead. On the ice, they had left a trail of corpses behind them and thought themselves lucky that they could do that much. Towards the end they had been so cold, so hungry that even leaving them behind seemed like a waste. But, however far they had fallen, the Noldor hadn’t fallen _that_ far.

They had moved the orc bodies away far enough that they might burn them, repaired the camp and set a watch. Fingon had expected to lie awake, bothered by the hundred things that kept him from sleeping every other night plus a few new ones (Lossamon dead and the orcs as well - they had been people once and he should never let himself forget it). But the turf was soft and he was tired and slept as soundly as he ever had.

They returned to Mithrim late in the afternoon, their shadows thrown before them by the falling sun.

Ever industrious, even in the short time they had been gone, the stakes of the palisade had been sharpened and work on a spike-lined trench had begun.

The guards opened the gate smartly at their approach. “you’re asked after, my lord,” said one of them. He could see the moment she caught sight of the riderless horse, the blanket-wrapped bundle slung across its saddle by the way her expression went suddenly wooden.

“I’m sorry to have kept Father waiting. I shall go to him at once,” Fingon said, though a debriefing was the last thing he wanted.

“Not him, sir. Your cousin. He’s awake.”


	2. Chapter 2

Fingon threw his reigns to an attendant and sprinted for the hospital tents, all thoughts of baths, rest, his injured wrist and aching side flown from his head.

He wasn’t sure what to expect and so prepared himself for the worst. Maedhros had begged for death upon the mountain, looked straight through him and mouthed incoherent pleas for an end to pain even as Fingon worked his dagger into the gap between the bones of his wrist. He girded himself for more screams and hysteria, for catatonia and blank unrecognition, for rage and curses, tears and blame.

The only thing he had not thought to prepare himself for was complacency and so, when he entered and Maedhros smiled at him and said, a little wryly, “Fingon. Thank you for coming,” he could think of no sensible reply.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

His cousin was no less thin and the wounds and sores not covered by bandages were, if anything, more hideous now that they were no longer hidden under thirty years of grime. Still, his eyes were clear and lucid and his manner was as proud as it had ever been, for all it took a small mountain of pillows to prop him upright.

“You’re looking better,” Fingon added, when the silence had stretched too long.

“Your healers are excellent. Please pass on my complements,” Maedhros said. His voice had been scraped thin by the ash of Thangorodrim and scars had made his smile into something twisted and ugly but he sounded so much like himself it was painful to hear. “I fear I was quite rude to them when first I woke.”

“I will,” Fingon said and they could have been in their grandfather’s palace fifty years ago, discussing the weather or some tedious matter of state.

Perhaps Maedhros had the same thought for he coughed a little and struggled to sit up straighter. “I’m not sure how- how long my strength will hold and there is much to talk about,” he said. “Before all else I must offer you my thanks. You came for me, beyond all hope.”

Fingon had expected, if he was entirely honest, Maedhros sobbing his thanks into his chest while Fingon stroked his hair and promised he was safe now, that Fingon would always come for him. But Maedhros had kept his composure, lost his hair and that was a selfish, foolish fantasy besides. “You do not need to thank me,” he said. “I could do no less.”

“Many would have.” _Many did_ , Fingon thought but did not say as Maedhros went on, “I must also offer my apologies. For Alqualondë and Losgar first of all-”

“I know you didn’t burn the ships.”

“I stood aside. I did nothing to _stop_ them. Just because I didn’t hold a torch it doesn’t mean I wasn’t culpable. I’m sorry, Fingon. Truly.”

“Don’t,” Fingon said, a little brusquely. He wanted to say ‘you are forgiven,’ but that wasn’t entirely true. On the Ice, after the kinslaying and the burning of the ships, he’d nurtured a hot little coal of anger against the cold. He had pictured his cousin begging for his forgiveness too many times to count and for all the image was soured now - he had seen Maedhros beg after all, if not for forgiveness - it was not so easily put aside. “If you must pick scabs off old wounds then be assured we will,” he said, “but now is not the time.”

“Not while I have so many fresh ones to contend with?” Even without the scars, his cousin’s smile would have been an ugly thing. “Very well. To the future. I intend to abdicate in favour of your father.”

“Excuse me?”

“It will, I hope, go some way towards healing the feud between our houses. And I am not fit to rule.” Maedhros spoke firmly but quickly as though racing to get the words out before his nerve failed or he were forced to stop. Fingon had wondered at his calm before. Now he looked at his cousin’s pale face and saw the smooth plains of the Helcaraxë, still as glass above while the air echoed with screaming as the ice ground itself to pieces beneath the surface.

“Not fit to- _Of course_ you are not fit to rule.” That was tactless and he scrambled to clarify. “It’s been scarcely more than a week and you’ve been unconscious most of that. You must give yourself time to heal - in mind as well as body - before making a decision like this.”

“Listen to yourself, Fingon,” Maedhros said in his reasonable older brother voice, the one that had so infuriated Fingon as a child. “What would your father say if he heard you trying to talk me out of giving him a crown?”

“Nevermind my father, what would your brothers say if they found out you’d handed away their inheritance? Maglor has held things together well enough while you were…indisposed. He can manage for a little longer and I give you my word that I will bridge this foolish rift and offer him my support. Once you are better-”

“Do you truly believe it that simple?”

“It can be. If we all put aside our pride and make reparations for the hurts that have been done. We came here to face the Enemy, not bicker like children; my father and your brothers must see the sense in combining our assets.”

“‘Must see sense’?” Maedhros echoed wearily. “Any plan that relies on our family bowing to reason and the greater good is as doomed as- well. As us.”

Fingon had assailed Angband alone, armed only with a harp, a bow and his own certainty that this was the right thing to do. He almost wished he was back there now, facing a problem that could be solved with courage and the edge of a blade. His eyes slipped, unwilling, to the bandaged remains of Maedhros’ right arm. “You can’t have given up.”

His cousin followed his gaze and gestured vaguely with the stump. “I haven’t. It’s _because_ I haven’t given up that I must do this. Our people deserve better than a king who can’t even wipe his own arse.” He hesitated, perhaps waiting for Fingon to laugh. When he didn’t he spoke on. “I’ve already discussed this with your father.”

How many times had Maedhros said that in the past? Whenever Fingon wanted to stay up past his bedtime or to keep a bearcub as a pet or mount an expedition to scale Taniquetil and would not take his cousin’s no for an answer, Maedhros would play that trump. “What did he say?” Fingon asked neutrally.

“He was...kind. Kinder than I deserve. But then it would not be kingly to be otherwise. Your father will rule well, Fingon. As will you.” Maedhros reached out and took Fingon’s hand in his left and both of them pretended that his right arm hadn’t twitched as if he had tried to reach with it first.

“You’ve thought about this.”

“Did you think I hadn’t? In recent years I’ve been able to do little but think. Let me do this.”

“Can I stop you?” Fingon said, knowing that this argument, like so many before it had been lost.

“Not unless you tie me to the bed again. Please Fingon. Have I not begged enough of late?”

Fingon loved Maedhros and, now, pitied him which made it hard to resist even such blatant manipulation. “We will speak of this again,” he said. “But you are more than just your crown. Is there anything that you need? Have you been given news of your brothers? Do you wish to speak of...what happened?”

“Let the past stay in the past,” Maedhros said dully. Whatever fire had animated him through their argument had dwindled and he lay back against the pillows, limp as a doll. “I have not yet thanked you, have I? That was churlish. Fingon, I am so grateful-”

“It was the first thing you did,” Fingon assured him.

“And I cannot say it enough. Forgive me, this is the longest conversation I’ve had in some time. I lose track.”

“I should let you rest.”

“Before you go,” Maedhros said vaguely, looking up at the canvas roof. “I do not trust- No, it does not matter. Your guards. They are loyal?”

“Of course.” Alfirin and Núrthel were steadfast in their devotion to his family, as were all who had made the long march with them.

“And their orders are to ensure I stay within this tent?” Maedhros blinked once, hard, and then his eyes slipped closed, seemingly despite his best efforts.

“They were posted to defend you,” Fingon said carefully. “I think it would unwise for you to try to leave your bed but when you are well again you won’t be denied-”

“Good. That is...good,” his cousin said, not opening his eyes. “They bound me before…”

“Never again,” Fingon promised him. “You’re safe here. Do not fear. I will not let you be taken again.”

If Maedhros heard him, he gave no sign and Fingon pulled his hand free of his slackened grip.

“Let no one enter but the healers,” he told the guards as he slipped from the sickroom. “And,” he added at the prodding of the fearful, insistent little voice in the back of his head, “let no one leave.”

***

“I have the reports you asked for. And a book.” One of the few that had survived the long march, clutched in Idril’s chubby hands. Before she was born Fingon had loved that same book, had loved even more when his cousin read from it, stories of courage and heroism upon the distant shores of Cuiviénen. “Would you like me to read to you?” he asked.

“Thank you but I’d hate to steal you from your duties,” Maedhros said, his eyes on the foxed leather cover and not Fingon’s face. “Your father mislikes me enough as it is.”

***

“I’ve had word from your brothers. They wish to visit again and in all likelihood ask you to accompany them back to their camp. If it would please you to do so…” Fingon could not finish the sentence; as they both well knew, the choice did not lie with them.

“I think,” said Maedhros, “it would be better if I did not see them until matters are resolved. Once your father’s plans are fully laid and cannot be turned aside by their tantrums.”

“This is not only about the crown,” Fingon was forced to say. “They fear for you and wish to see that you are safe and well.”

“They have waited thirty years for that,” Maedhros said mildly. “They can stand to wait a little longer.”

***

“I shot the hare myself,” Fingon said, setting down the steaming bowl. “Do you remember the time we went camping halfway to the Forest of Oromë, just the two of us? It was you who shot the hare that time and we cooked it so badly it was half charred, half raw and then ate it anyway. Don’t worry, this one was prepared by someone who knew what they were about.”

“Thank you,” said Maedhros. “What a kind gesture.” He ate two spoonfuls of the stew - left handed, painfully slowly - and then pushed the bowl aside.

***

“He is not as I expected,” Fingon said to his brother, setting down his load of planks. “He is much better than I feared but he seems...detached. Remote.”

“All manner of things could be the cause,” Turgon said, adding an annotation to the plans spread on the trestle table before him. They were overseeing the construction of their new granaries although each had interpreted ‘oversee’ in his own way; Fingon was dusted head to toe with sawdust and Turgon’s hands were black with ink splotches. “You’ve always been impatient and healing, above all else, takes time.”

“Perhaps.” Fingon shook sweet smelling wood shavings from his braids creating a tiny, localized blizzard. The builders working around them looked slightly scandalized but Fingon waved them away. The demands of propriety had been broken down by necessity upon the long march and thoughtless menial labour and aching muscles was just what he needed right then.“I hope so. He will speak only of politics, I think to hold me at arm’s length.”

“His arm’s length isn’t what it used to be.” Since the Ice, Turgon’s humour had run as black as the ink that stained his hands. “Thanks entirely to you. Is it so surprising?”

“Tasteless, brother. Very tasteless.” Fingon tried to smile but his brother had touched at the heart of his worry. “Do you truly think he blames me?”

“In my heart I still blame him for Elenwë. It isn’t rational but that small part wonders why you stopped at one hand. Do not look so fearful!” he said when Fingon blanched. “It is a _small_ part. I can’t say I’ve ever liked him - He’s no less scheming than the rest of his family, only better at putting a pretty face on it - but I know he’s more than paid for what little of it was his fault. Just as he must know you did the only thing you could. He will forgive you, if he hasn’t already.”

“He speaks to me like we’re still in Tirion,” Fingon said. “Like I’m still a foolish child he’s been asked to humour.” He didn’t know why that bothered him so much. Or perhaps he did but he could hardly discuss that with his brother.

Turgon glanced down to where Idril sat beneath the table, her hair burnished white by sunlight, intent upon constructing a building of her own from offcuts of wood. “When we lose something precious to us we cling all the more desperately to what remains,” he said. “Let him play the elder brother if it gives him comfort; he has little else left. He has lost a father, a hand and very soon will lose a crown.”

Fingon stretched the kinks out of his back and then knelt to admire Idril’s efforts. His admiration was indeed warranted - it was a less a child’s clumsy toy than it was their camp writ in miniature. He gravely accepted the scraps of string she pressed into his hand and began to plait them into a rope for her. Apparently the model camp wouldn’t be complete without a working drawbridge. “You’ve become wise as Grandfather in your old age, little brother. Let us hope that one day you are half the architect your daughter is.”

“I’ve always been wise, you just haven’t been listening,” Turgon said, bending to sweep his daughter up into his arms. “And Aulë himself wishes he were half the architect Idril is. Do you know, if we extend that wall I think we could fit a hidden storage chamber here.”

“It’s a granary, Turgon. Why would we need hidden grain storage?”

Turgon brushed curls of swarf from his daughter’s hair. “You never know.”

***

The next few days were uneventful and pleasantly so. They finished the storehouses, complete with hidden chambers at Turgon’s insistence, with enough time to have everything securely away by the time the next rainstorm hit. Other buildings sprang up like mushrooms and the people began to talk of forestry, of mines and quarries and building in stone, not wood. His father’s councils ran long into the night but Fingolfin was happiest when he was overworked and Fingon left him to it. Maedhros was distant still but growing stronger, his wounds less hideous as infection and inflammation receeded. He smiled often and if it never reached his eyes, he pretended well enough that Fingon could pretend too.

The peace did not last.

The woman found their camp on the evening of the fifteenth day after the rescue. Lookouts spotted her some miles away and Fingon, of course, led the outriders that went to meet her.

She walked slowly, her head bowed, her bare feet dragging trails in the dirt behind her. Her only garb was the mud and blood that painted her jutting ribs and hollow belly.

“My lady,” Fingon called to her, slowing his horse some hundred meters away. They had scouted the area for orcs before approaching but she was, as far as they could tell, entirely alone.

The woman gave no sign that she had heard him, continuing her silent march towards the camp. She held her right arm awkwardly, cradled close to her chest, supported by her left and the sight of it made Fingon’s mouth go dry.

He dismounted and started towards her, but Ýreth nudged her horse in front of him, forcing him to slow. “Permission to approach, sir?” she said. “It may yet be a trap. And if it’s not she might find me less threatening.”

Much as Fingon hated to ask his soldiers to take risks on his behalf, she was not wrong on either count. “Very well. Ninaeldis, go with her.”

They approached on foot, disciplined despite their trepidation and if their hands hovered a little too close to their sword hilts, the girl did not seem to notice. She would have walked straight past them if Ninaeldis hadn’t held out an arm to stop her. She rebounded off it and came to rest, her feet still scuffing at the ground.

They spoke to her comfortingly, Ýreth brash and cheerful, Ninaeldis calmer, more coaxing. Ninaeldis offered her water from her canteen and Ýreth swept off her cloak and held it out to her. She ignored them both until Ýreth went to drape the garment about her shoulders at which point she gave a wordless cry and staggered away.

Fingon stepped forwards, unthinking, and she turned in his direction, her right hand raised towards him. It was a ruin of bruised, suppurating flesh and sharp, white bone, and he recoiled from it as though struck.

Cat-quick, Ýreth kicked out the woman's legs from under her and Ninaeldis stepped forwards to press the point of her sword to her back to keep her where she sprawled.

“No! Do not hurt her!” Fingon ordered. “Let her up.”

“My lord?” They both stepped back but neither sheathed their blades.

Fingon knelt and offered her his hand and she gripped it with a fierce, desperate strength. "Help her onto my horse," he said. 

“Another for your collection, my lord,” Ýreth said, as they settled her in the saddle. Usually Fingon enjoyed her candor but those words rang unpleasantly in his head. The woman’s eyes were cloudy grey and her hair, beneath the dirt, was very red.

“What is your name?” he asked her and was not surprised when she gave no answer. There was no trace upon her features of the woman she had once been; suffering was written upon her so starkly that it blotted out all that had gone before.

She did not speak once upon the ride back to camp.

He left her with the healers and, because he was not entirely foolish, half the soldiers he had ridden out with. “Watch her,” he told them. “Do not let your guards down for a moment.” Many of them looked at him strangely but quiet Ninaeldis nodded to him and he thought she understood.

“I mislike this,” said their father when Fingon had given his report.

“As do I but what else can we do? Leave her staked out for the orcs to recapture?”

“Recapture?” His father’s mouth was a thin, tight line. “Do you truly think she escaped?”

Fingon hesitated. “No,” he said. “I think she is a message.”

“And a rather pointed one,” his father said. “But you’re right. We aren’t Elwë or my brother, to abandon innocents to their fates. See that she is kept well guarded. And my nephew also.”

“Do you think she was sent for him?”

His father did not answer swiftly. “Perhaps,” he said at last and Fingon went to do his duty.

***

He did not sleep that night or the night that followed but sat up with the healers and kept watch, though for what he did not know. The woman they had saved was, if not cooperative then tractable. Ýreth called her Dineneth, for her silence, though she did not answer to it any more than she had responded to anything else. She ignored their efforts to heal her, to feed and clothe her, to ask her where she was from and how she had come to them.

Her injured hand was her only recent hurt but she carried the marks of many old ones. Her back was a map of pale scar tissue and too many things to count had been broken and healed wrongly. They had wondered for a while if she had a tongue at all, so silent was she, but as far as they could tell it was upon her fëa that the wound lay. Ninaeldis would come and speak with her, soft and intent, and Fingon had taken to reading to her when he had no other duties. If it was not the bedside he would have preferred to sit at, she at least seemed to take comfort from his presence.

“It’s strange,” said Aredhel over a hasty dinner in the hospital tent, after giving up her own attempt to interrogate their patient. “After seeing how well our cousin is recovering, I keep expecting her to- to snap out of it, to wake and speak to us. But she won’t, will she? I can’t imagine being so lost.” She picked at her bread and cheese and then, with a noise of annoyance, brushed the crumbs from her bleached doeskin leggings.

“People react differently,” said Fingon, who did not agree with her assessment of Maedhros as recovering. “We don’t know what she has suffered. Or he.” Just as the woman smothered in her silence, Maedhros wore a mask of unconcern and beneath the same leaden hopelessness lay upon them both. That, perhaps was the message she had been sent to convey; that there was no healing to be had.

They sat at Dineneth’s bedside, her one good hand tangled in the fabric of his tunic, her hair a red-gold corona about her head. With the blood and grime washed out it was almost blonde and Fingon wondered why he’d ever compared it to his cousin’s dark auburn.

A horn sounded from the direction of the camp perimeter.

“Enemies!” Aredhel crammed the rest of her bread into her mouth and rose. “To the walls!”

Together they sprinted through the night, weaving between tents and puzzled civilians, forcing their way through the flow of soldiers up onto the ramparts.

There were enemies indeed, a huddled black mass of them gathered more than a bowshot from where they stood. A hundred or so by Fingon’s count, hellishly lit by the orange glow of the firepots they carried.

“What are they doing?” his sister asked. “This is foolishness! They have no siege equipment. How on earth can they think to frighten us with such a paltry force?”

As if to answer her the orcs set down their flames and took up bows and arrows with their heads wrapped in pitchy, oozing rags.

“They can’t mean to shoot from there,” she said doubtfully. “Have they developed some new kind of weapon?”

“Not that I can see.”

Great bows of pale bone and blackened timber creaked as their strings of twisted gut pulled taut.

“Take cover!” Fingon cried for better safe than sorry and his soldiers rushed to obey. He alone with Aredhel stood tall and unflinching for if the enemy had new weapons they must see and understand them while their own soldiers must see them unafraid.

There was no need to fear. All their arrows fell well short of the mark. One arrow caught an updraft and went further than the rest, clattered against the wooden walls below them. It fell and fizzled out upon the earth at the bottom of their defensive trench. The timber of their palisade was well seasoned and still damp from the recent rains. It would never catch from such meager efforts.

The wind caught in Aredhel's hair and tugged it out behind her in a ragged, firelit banner, black and red. “A pretty show, if such was their intention.” She threw back her head and laughed.

Several soldiers laughed with her. “Should we answer, my lord?” one asked.

“No,” Fingon said. “Don’t waste your arrows. They’re no more in our range than we’re in theirs.”

“We could ride out to meet them,” suggested another, a woman with wide, fierce eyes and a nose tip lost to frostbite.

“The sight of them on our doorstep sickens me as much as you yet this is surely a trap,” his sister put in. “They must have a larger force concealed and hope to lure us out.”

Chilling certainty wrapped claws around Fingon’s chest and settled upon his shoulders. “I’m returning to the healer's’ tent,” he told her.

“Why?”

“It’s just a suspicion. Hold the wall, little sister and do nothing I would not do.”

“So I _should_ leap from the parapets and charge them single handed?” She smiled but her voice was grave and the look she gave him searching. Still, at last she nodded and turned back to her watch.

***

He ran, hoping against all hope that he was wrong. And then, at the tent’s dark entrance he almost tripped over a body wearing his father’s blue livery, dyed black by night and blood, and knew the hope had been a foolish one.

Alfirin, his throat slit from behind. Fingon stooped to find a pulse but the man’s breast was still and already his hands grew cold.

 _Orcs_ , he told himself, not believing it. _Orcs have somehow breached our defenses and came to steal back their prize. I shall slay them and avenge him and that shall be the end of it._

“Cousin?” he called, drawing his sword. “Dineneth?” There was no answer. With his free hand he snatched up a torch and stepped into the tent.

It smelt no more strongly of blood than usual but the stink of herbs was overpowering; bottles and jars had been knocked from their shelves to break upon the floor and carpet it with drifts of dried leaves and puffs of powders. Two more bodies lay amongst them, Ninaeldis, her sword half drawn, blood upon her temple, and the young healer who had sent him away on that first day, the one whose name he’d never learnt. There were other bodies upon the beds, in positions of repose. Some might be dead, some sleeping but he had not the chance to look for Dineneth was before him.

Her face was as smooth and blank as ever and there was a knife in her left hand, surgeon sharp. She knelt upon another body, one that writhed beneath her, left arm pinned, its maimed right raised in a gesture of helpless warding.  _Maedhros_.

Fingon cried her name again. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “You’re safe now. Free.”

She did not look at him. She lowered her head and pressed her thin lips to Maedhros’ ear, her bandaged right hand raised to stroke his cheek. His cousin cried out and flinched away from words and touch.

She raised the knife.

Fingon’s sword was in his hand and he could kill her, easily so. But his heart would not allow it for surely she was as much a victim here as those that she had killed. What prince would fail to even try to save her? He tossed his blade aside and sprang forwards, catching her wrist and bending it back.

She did not drop her weapon and she showed no sign of pain. It should have been easy to disarm her but there was a terrible strength in her yet and Fingon remembered the tempered steel of his gorget crumpling like paper in an orc’s hand.

“Please,” he said. “Let us help you. You don’t have to-”

She sank her broken teeth into his neck and, when he gasped in pain and recoiled, wrenched her hand free of his weakened grip.

Her blade came up again and Fingon raised his arm in time to shield his face. The knife cut through leather, cloth and flesh to scrape on bone and Fingon clenched his jaw to keep from screaming.

Before she could strike again, Maedhros gathered his wits enough to kick out at her legs. He was not strong but he caught the back of her knee and the leg went out from under her.

“Kill her,” he said.

“I will not harm you,” Fingon swore to her through gritted teeth. “Put down the knife. Get behind me, Cousin.”

“Kill her,” Maedhros repeated. “It’s all you can do for her.” He did not move and Fingon was forced to step between him and where Dineneth knelt, torch raised to ward her off.

She got her legs under her and charged, shockingly fast, crashing into him with more force than her slight weight should have allowed. The brand did not dissuade her and, as she bore him down he heard the crackle-spit of it licking at her flesh.

“ _Kill her!_ ” Maedhros screamed.

The stink of burning hair drowned out the smell of blood and sweat and pain.

“Please,” Fingon begged that implacable mask of a face. “You can still be healed.” Her fingers, whole and broken, sought his throat and closed around it.

She sighed suddenly, the first sound she had made that night, and her grip slackened. Fingon pushed at her and she rolled off him, ragdoll limp.

Behind her stood Aredhel, bloody spear clutched in white-knuckled hands, her face as pale as her raiment. “Fingon? Are you well?”

“Yes,” he said, gasping for air. “Yes. I am fine. Only scratched. Maedhros?”

His cousin stared at them blankly from the floor, upon his face the same slack expression Dineneth had worn until the end. Fingon went to him, took his hand, his shoulder, cupped his cheek and Maedhros shuddered and snapped back into focus, his arm flying up to catch Fingon’s wrist.

His right arm.

There was a long horrible moment in which they both stared frozen at the empty space in which their hands should have touched, and then Maedhros relaxed, laughing a little like a man who has been clumsy and made a fool of himself. “She did not hurt me,” he said and if Fingon hadn’t known him better he would have thought him calm.

“What did she say to you?” Fingon asked gently.

Maedhros smiled apologetically. “Nothing. She said nothing.”

“This was a message,” Aredhel said, soft as the light tread of a hunting cat. “But was it meant for us or you? If she said something to you then we must know.”

Maedhros shook his head, his mouth clamped shut, the smile fallen away.

“The Sindar warned us and we did not listen,” Aredhel said, turning to Fingon. “They said the Enemy takes people and they come back changed. So twisted that sometimes they do not even know themselves that they are broken to his purpose.”

“He did not break me - he did _not_!” Maedhros’ calm shattered like dropped glass. His voice was desperate and a pale, fierce fire burnt in his eyes.

“Would you not say much the same if he had?” Aredhel said, her spear still in her hands.

“When we first spoke you asked after the guards,” said Fingon, pressing a rag his injured arm to stem the flow of blood. “I thought you feared to be imprisoned again but it wasn’t that, was it? You feared what you might do if left alone.”

The fire flickered out and Maedhros slumped back to the floor. “Do you see now why I cannot rule? Even were I not a traitor and a kinslayer, I will be ever seen as compromised. My every decision will be questioned, our burgeoning alliance with the Sindar could falter-”

“Stop!” Fingon cried. “Why do you speak of _politics_? It does not matter whether you are fit to rule! It matters that you are my friend and you are wounded and afraid.”

Maedhros looked up at him, his mask repaired as swiftly as it had fallen apart. “I’m well. Only a little shaken. You should have someone see to your arm. And I think that soldier might yet live.”

“I’ll go and find a healer,” Aredhel said briskly. “Many must be off duty or by the walls. Will you two be alright?” She looked to Fingon as she spoke and he wanted to beg her not to leave him alone with the corpses of those he had failed to save and a stranger he did not know how to help.

 _Fingon the_ _Valiant_ , he remembered. “We’ll be fine,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Fingon righted one of the beds and then offered his cousin his hand. He was almost surprised when Maedhros accepted and allowed himself to be settled upon the mattress. He was only wearing a light nightshirt and his hand was almost as cold as poor Alfirin’s had been. Fingon found one of those few blankets not stained with spilt medicines or blood and draped it about his shoulders, feeling an overprotective parent.

“Your arm,” Maedhros said dully.

“It’s only a scratch. It scarcely hurts.” It was true that it didn’t, though the rag he had pressed to it was already soaked and dripping. At least the carpets were already ruined.

“It’s no wonder with so sharp a blade. Let me see to it.”

Fingon held his arm out obediently - there was comfort in the ritual, as old as their friendship, when his cousin had mended scraped knees and singed fingers with words of comfort and pieces of honeycomb. Maedhros took it with his left and then hesitated; the cuts went deeper now and it took two hands to bind a wound. Tirion had never seemed so distant.  

“Together,” Fingon said, pulling away to pluck a roll of bandages from the floor. He did not look at his cousin’s face. The wound deep but thin and between their two working hands they managed to get it clumsily bound up. “You were very brave,” Maedhros said dryly and Fingon smiled despite himself.

There was much to be set right within the tent, so much that Fingon scarcely knew where to begin. He settled for checking the bodies; Ninaeldis did indeed still live and groaned as he rolled her over onto her side. The young healer was dead. The patients were dead. He returned what dignity he could, closing eyes and straightening twisted limbs. He lifted Dineneth’s body and laid her out upon another unoccupied bed. Her face was as blank in death as it had been in life but at least he could pretend she was at peace.

“You shouldn’t have hesitated,” Maedhros said quietly. “She could have killed you too.”

“It wasn’t her fault. None of it was. We might yet have saved her.”

“There was nothing left to save,” Maedhros said, his eyes upon the body. “Don’t pity her; she was no different than the orcs you kill. They just happened to leave her face intact.”

“Do you think I don’t pity orcs? I know they did not choose what was done to them. I have tried to reason with them but never do they listen and always do their deaths weigh on me.”

“Promise me you’ll stop trying. You cannot allow them quarter. You cannot let yourself be deceived again, however much you want to believe-”

“Should we let him make monsters of us too? Morgoth used this poor woman like a tool to sow distrust but we shall not fall for-”

“I doubt this was Melkor’s doing,” Maedhros said abruptly. The bed creaked beneath him as he struggled to sit. “He is cunning enough but he does not attend to details. The red hair, the maimed hand - that speaks of his lieutenant's flare for the dramatic.”

“You still haven’t told me what she said to you.”

Maedhros shrugged as though unconcerned and then winced as his right shoulder clicked. “That it was my choice.”

“What was?”

“She didn’t say. How I break my fast tomorrow perhaps.”

Not a lie but an obfuscation, Fingon was sure. It was more obvious than ever that the lightness in his cousin’s voice was false. Fingon’s temper broke and he almost shouted, barely held back from grabbing his cousin by the shoulders and shaking him. “How long do you intend to keep up this pretence?”

Maedhros at least did not feign ignorance of his meaning. “Until the Enemy is cast down. Until my brothers no longer need me. Until our father’s jewels are back in our hands- hand,” he amended with a small laugh.

“You will never heal like that.”

“I do not seek healing. If a limb is damaged beyond repair it must be cut away lest the infection spread, is that not so?” Maedhros’ lips drew back in something that was not a smile. “I seek only for the strength to keep fighting and I cannot do that if you keep asking me to- We have a war to win and there is so much you don’t understand. The things Melkor will do-”

“No, I do not understand! I want to, truly I do, but at every turn you push me away. I do not know how to help you.”

“I did not ask for help.”

“Yes,” Fingon said gently, his anger cooled to an awful certainty. “You did. Is that truly your will? Even now?” He waited for another laugh, another dismissal, but his cousin would not meet his eyes.

“No. Perhaps. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I swore an oath.”

Fingon reached out, as slowly as he would to pet a stray cat, ensuring that his cousin could see the movement. When it garnered no response he let his hand rest lightly at the small of his back. More comfort he did not dare to give.

“Please Fingon,” Maedhros said, and there was more feeling in his voice than in all the days since his rescue. “I _know_ you want to help me. I do know that. And I know how much I owe you. But I _can’t_ \- the things you want. I can’t give. There’s nothing left. Only an oath and a duty to our people.”

There was nothing Fingon could say to that.

They sat in silence until his sister returned.

***

The healer, Thernil she told him when he asked, took charge as swiftly as she had after the rescue and Fingon was grateful to be ordered about, for any excuse not to think on what had passed.

“How can I aid you?” he asked as she knelt over Ninaeldis’ still body.

“By getting out of my light. Go sit down before you faint. My lord,” she added, perfunctory.

“Your apprentice-”

“Iawen,” she said. “A pity. Clumsy but skilled in herblore. For her age at least; it takes centuries of study to become a master. She might have done well. Sit _down_ , boy.”

His hands, he realised, were shaking and he was not sure if it was the aftershocks of injury and sudden violence or his distress at what had been spoken of. He obeyed her, finding a clean patch of floor out of the way and Aredhel joined him.

“I am sorry I was not there sooner,” she told him. “We were lucky for your glimpse of foresight.”

“It was a guess and nothing more,” Fingon said.

“It was a terrible sight to come upon,” Aredhel said softly. Her white tunic was specked with garish red.  “Still, I wish I hadn’t reacted as I did. It grieves me that I could kill with so little thought. Not once but twice now I have reached for a weapon in favour of words or reason and twice now our kin have died for that choice.”

“I do not know if there was another way to stop her; our cousin said she was an orc hidden behind a fair mask and I will bow to his wisdom in such matters. You saved me, Sister, and him too and in so doing gave her peace.” He laid a hand upon her shoulder and that comfort at least was not a lie.

His sister’s eyes were dark and searching. “I don’t think you believe that or I might not have found you choking on the floor. I know the words are kindly meant and I thank you for them, but this must be decided within my own heart.”

She rose, grim and blood-spattered, and left him there.

***

There was another ragged slave before their gate within the week.

This one spoke, begging to be let in with a shaking voice. They watched from the parapets as he threw his body against it and clawed at the wood - later they would find fingernails embedded in it.

The gate remained closed.

***

Fingon rose before dawn, for the summons he was sure would come, yet still not early enough - his father’s messenger was waiting outside the tent flaps, her cloak glistening with dew.

“He requested that your cousin attend as well,” Penneth said, shivering. “If you thought him recovered enough.”

“I don’t,” Fingon said, “though no doubt he will disagree.” He gestured her to the brazier inside to warm the morning chill from her hands.

He thought to find Maedhros asleep - Fingon had ordered a cot made up in his own tent rather than leave him in the carnage of the hospital - but the bed was empty and long cold.

He had not wanted to post extra guards upon his cousin, trusting in those outside his tent and in his own watchfulness. Now, sprinting out into the brisk morning air, he cursed himself for a fool. His heart thudded sickly in his chest in time with the racing of his thoughts. What had it come to that he hoped Maedhros had been snatched away by the Enemy’s agents? Orcs he could fight off but if his cousin had left of his own will then that could only mean-

His fears had so consumed him that he did not see Maedhros until he was almost upon him. Until he had, in fact, almost impaled himself upon his outstretched sword.

Fingon took a stumbling step backwards as Maedhros lowered the blade and inclined his head in acknowledgement. He looked no less ghastly now that he was risen from his sickbed; clothes borrowed from a shorter, heavier man lent him an unfortunate resemblance to a scarecrow and the flush of exertion brought his scars into sharper relief. His feet were bare upon the frosty grass; Fingon had not thought to find him shoes and he had evidently not thought to find them for himself.

“You rose early,” he said inanely.

“I’d prefer not to make a fool out of myself in front of the entire camp.” Maedhros raised the sword again, jaw set with the effort, and brought it down in a diagonal arc. It was a simple drill, cutting from a high guard to a low one, nothing either of them hadn’t practiced a thousand times before, and still the blade wavered and trembled through the movements.

Fingon remembered Alqualondë where he had seen his cousin fight with a fierce, terrible grace. His hair had been black in the darkness, as had the blood that streaked his blade, his surcoat, his face. Even then he had been beautiful, in the way his father’s swords were beautiful.

Now he compared unfavourably to a child swatting at leaves with a stick.

“Did Thernil say you were well enough for that?” Fingon asked.

“She did not forbid it.” Maedhros wore his mask of good humour again and for once Fingon was content to let him.

“I doubt it occurred to her that it would be necessary. You should be abed.”

“The Enemy will not wait for me to find my strength. Dineneth made that quite clear. It is difficult,” he went on, letting the sword’s point dip to rest upon the ground and leaning heavily on the crossguard. “It goes far beyond the stamina I’ve lost. My body is unbalanced and all my instincts are wrong. It will be challenging to relearn everything.” He did not seem particularly distressed at the prospect - when had a son of Fëanor shied from a challenge?

“I’ll spar with you, as often as you wish,” Fingon said. “Where did you find the sword?” he added with feigned casualness.

“Don’t worry, I’m not about to fall upon it. I’m not so weak as that.” Maedhros grinned as though it were a joke between them.

Fingon hid his sickness and forced an answering smile. “You’re as bad as Turgon. Put it down; my father has called a council.”

Maedhros walked, not entirely steady, over to where the sword’s scabbard sat propped against their tent and looked from it to the naked blade in his hand. “Easier taken up than put aside,” he observed wryly. “You’d think I would have learnt by now.” After a minute’s fumbling, doubly complicated by the sling he wore, he managed to pin the sheath with his right forearm and slide it home. “Shall we be off then?”

“Whether you will it or no, you are a king yet. You cannot go to council barefoot.”

Maedhros scuffed at the dirt with his toes. “I had forgotten. How strange! It has been years since I wore shoes.”

“You’re in good company. Since we left the Ice, little Idril dances everywhere unshod. She treads mud all over her bedding and drives Turgon to distraction.”

“She must have grown since last I saw her. Celebrimbor too.”

“I haven’t seen him but if he’s grown half as much as Idril you’ll have competition for your epithet. We can see her after the council, if you wish it. She’s making a model of the camp - it grows larger every time I see it - and she’d love having someone new to show it to.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Perhaps not yet.” They walked slowly, stopping at Fingon’s tent to borrow footwear, and a cloak for the chill and to conceal how slack Maedhros’ clothes hung.

“We’ll have something more appropriate tailored, of course,” Fingon said, handing over the cloak. It was dark green, a colour that he had never cared for but which had always become his cousin. “There just hasn’t been the time and we do not yet have a way to produce cloth so we must-”

Maedhros waved dismissal with the stump of his right arm. “Don’t be foolish, you have done more than enough. Too much really. I keep waiting for him to snatch it all away. Being permitted food, clothing, company or solitude as I wish it seems so implausible. Two nights ago I sat in the tub and wept for near an hour over being allowed to be _clean_.”

“You...wept?” He had not expected to hear it admitted so baldly.

“Ridiculous, no? But you keep asking me for honesty. I promise that I did it very quietly, so as not to alarm the servants.”

“You know you are not _permitted_ anything. You have every right to all those things and more. You have only to ask-”

“I know, I know, it’s all terribly silly.” Maedhros stood, shuffling his feet in Fingon’s boots. “Come, your father awaits us.”

***

The tent was the grandest that had survived the trek, blue-dyed cloth only somewhat weathered, a pavilion that could sit fifty at need and yet held only his father and siblings. The furniture was fresh-made upon the shores of the lake and so function had been prioritized over elegance. The only decoration was a little scrollwork on the chair at the head of the table, which was supposed to be his father’s. It had been left empty though, for Maedhros, at whose right his father had placed himself. Neither seemed entirely comfortable with the gesture.

“Wine, Nephew?” Fingolfin asked. Not ‘majesty’ but whether that was his conceit or Maedhros’, Fingon did not know.

“Thank you,” Maedhros said, reaching for the carafe left handed. Fingolfin swept it up first and poured for him, and then topped off the glass with water. Quite a lot of water, Fingon noted; the liquid was more pink than red.

“To your health,” Maedhros said, smiling thinly.

“And to yours; may it continue to improve. Know that I would not have dragged you from your sickbed but I believe you may have a unique insight into the matter we are here to discuss.”

“How sensitively put. I did witness last week’s attack though I believe Aredhel was most clear headed of the the three of us. Without her, Fingon and I would be dead.”

Aredhel, seated to their father’s left, nodded in acknowledgement but did not smile or preen. “I am glad my actions saved my brother, and you cousin, though it grieves me that I cost Dineneth her life.”

“We are not here to discuss the matter of Dineneth but rather those that come after her. Others of our people corrupted by the Enemy.” Fingolfin was very fond of councils even though, Fingon was aware, they usually consisted of his advisers bickering for two hours and then him doing what he had already decided to do under the cover of a consensus.

“Why does this need discussion?” Tugon asked. “They cannot breach our defenses - the man last night proved that much - and as long as we ignore them they are no danger to us.”

“We did not come to cower behind our walls,” said Aredhel. “We should follow them, find where they came from and bring them _back_. Whether for healing or for a proper burial I shall let wiser heads decide but it is monstrous to leave them to madness and starvation, or to prey upon our allies. Dineneth must once have been a woman no different than I. And now the very best that we can do for her is bury her beneath a name that isn’t hers.”

“I’m sure we all pity her but that does not change that seven are dead by her hand,” said Turgon. “It is a foolish, unnecessary risk to clutch another viper to our breast.”

“We know the dangers better now. We would watch more closely, not fall for their distractions.”

“That is a weak defense, even you must see it. Are you so hungry for another chance to prove your mettle?”

“Fingon?” said Aredhel. She knew how to choose her battles, did his sister.

“I am with Aredhel,” he said. “I believe these people can be saved. It ill becomes us not to try. ”

“So you would have to say,” said Turgon. “But I have a daughter to protect and I will not risk her for the sake of your principles.”

“Nephew? I should like to hear your opinion,” their father said, nodding to Maedhros.

“I don’t believe this calls for a discussion. They are monsters. Kill them if you must, or wait them out but do not bring another into camp.”

“By that logic we should put you out as well,” said Turgon. It was unclear if he meant it in jest.

Fingon’s heart was leaden in his chest and he spoke swiftly lest Maedhros agree. “Don’t do this, either of you. The Enemy seeks to divide us, force us to question each other. He is afraid of us-”

“Do you truly think Melkor fears you?” Maedhros interrupted, sounding genuinely curious.

“Morgoth,” said Turgon with a queer kind of triumph in his voice. “Your own father named him so.”

Maedhros grimaced. “It displeases him to be called that.” And then he grinned, too wide, showing the gaps where teeth had been. “ _Good_. Morgoth then. Do you think you cowed him with your trumpets and pretty banners? He will come for us again and when he does-”

“When he does we shall drive him back into his hole just as we did before,” said Aredhel, tall and proud, the daughter of a line of kings. “You speak as his slave. A boot may feel heavy to the man whose neck it rests upon but watch its owner face a foe unbound and unafraid and see how quickly he crumbles.”

“I pray you never learn how wrong you are,” Maedhros said with a sincerity that drew her up short.

“This is not what we met to discuss,” said Fingolfin levelly. “Our campaign strategies can wait for another time.”

A time, Fingon thought, when he was king in name as well as intent. When Fëanor and Finarfin’s children must answer his commands and form a united front. Perhaps that was why Finrod and Galadriel had not been called to this meeting.

“We will send messages to our Sindar friends,” his father went on. “Warning them of what happened here. We will track the man we saw last night but leave him unmolested. Turgon is right; our people have faced enough hardship without us inviting the Enemy’s servants into our camp. Objections, Nephew?”

His father’s face was unreadable while Turgon stared at Maedhros with scarcely concealed disgust. Aredhel’s lips were a thin line and Maedhros’ eyes were bright and fell. “None,” he said, rising to his feet.

“That was ill done,” Fingon said when he had stumbled from the tent.

Aredhel’s chair screeched back as she rose. “Whether he is the Enemy’s or not, he cannot speak like that. Think of morale-”

“Why do you suppose I only summoned the four of you?” said their father. “He is not well and is my brother’s son besides - I do not expect sound judgement from him. You, my daughter, do not have either excuse.”

Fingon was torn between rushing after his cousin and continuing the argument. “Father, to go back to the topic, if we will not act for compassion, let us act in our own interest; the knowledge Morgoth’s thralls could give us-

“The choice is made,” said Fingolfin. “Obey your father or obey your liege but do your duty.”

Fingon stood and bowed. “Very well. Excuse me; I go after my king.”

“I would speak with you first. Turgon, Aredhel, I thank you for your council.”

A murmur of assent to the dismissal, Tugron’s hand clasping his shoulder, Aredhel’s whispered “I’ll find him for you,” and his siblings left them alone together.

“Are you well, Fingon? I’m aware these past weeks have been difficult for you.”

“Difficult? After the Darkening, after the Ice and Alqualondë, my definition of difficult has changed. All is well, Father.”

“I am glad to hear that, though it may be about to change again. His brothers are coming. Tomorrow. I could put them off no longer.”

“He doesn’t wish to see them.” Maedhros had not said why or, rather, he had given a number of excuses, each weaker than the last.

“Sooner or later he will have to. And sooner is better else they will spread it about that I took my poor, mad nephew hostage and forced his birthright from him. We must show them that he is of sound mind and made the decision freely else they will not abide by it.”

“He is not mad. But nor is he of sound mind. Was it his own idea to give you the crown, Father? Truly?”

If his father was offended by the question, he hid it well. “It was. I doubt it was the political decision he tries to play it off as but that makes it no less his choice. If he has the strength to rule as High King, he has the strength to make this decision. If he does not then the crown must pass to one more capable. Either way it is for the best. I know you love him well but-”

“I understand,” Fingon said. “I’ll see to the preparations for tomorrow.”

“Like as not it will be ugly,” his father cautioned. “Do try to keep your temper under control.”

“I promise,” Fingon said easily, “that the first blow thrown shall not be mine.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Blue,” Maedhros said, holding up the tunic and raising his eyebrows.

“It suits your colouring,” said Fingon blandly.

“It suits your father’s agenda - I’ve always thought it made me look sallow. Still. Help me with the clasps?”

He drew on his breeches under the cover of the voluminous nightshirt and then shrugged it off to struggle into a shirt and the offending blue tunic with Fingon’s aid - even discounting the missing hand, the joints of his right arm were stiff and clearly pained him.

There were fewer bandages, fewer sores and bruises though Fingon tried not to look too closely. Clearly Maedhros did not want them to be seen but to avoid them seemed just as cruel, as though they were something to be ashamed of, something Fingon was disgusted by.

“Your hair’s starting to grow back.” He meant it as a comfort, for his cousin had always been vain about his hair, which had shone like burnished copper under the light of Laurelin. If it did not shine so brightly now, still it did something to hide the scars and soften the gauntness of his face.

“I’ll have to cut it again,” Maedhros said distractedly. He looked up from fumbling to pin up his sleeve and saw the pain on Fingon’s face. “It’s more practical. Less chance of picking up lice; your healers have only just finished ridding me of the last lot and I don’t care to harbour them again. And then there is combat to consider.”

“Wear a helmet. Or braid it.” Fingon gestured to his own, tilting his head so that the light caught on the golden threads.

Maedhros turned to him and raised his hand to Fingon’s face, winding thin fingers through his hair. He was gentle and Fingon leaned into the caress without quite realising he was doing it - all touch between them had become a fragile, tentative thing, something longed for but unsought.

“It makes for a pretty leash,” Maedhros said lightly, clenching his hand into a fist. He pulled, not so hard as to hurt but enough to drag Fingon’s head back and make his breath come in a gasp. He let go just as abruptly and went back to fiddling with his sleeve.

“I’ll find you a barber.” Fingon took up the loose fabric and fastened it out of the way as neatly as he could; he was well used to hiding his disquiet by now.

“Thank you,” Maedhros said, as though the strangeness had not happened. “Do you know which of them will come?”

“Maglor for a certainty. The rest I do not know.”

Fully dressed, Maedhros hesitated at the tent’s exit. “It might be ugly. I understand if you would prefer not to see it.” An echo of Fingolfin's words. In some ways they were shockingly alike. 

“I’ve never minded ugliness and I’d hate to miss an excuse to break Celegorm’s nose again. Do _you_ want me there?”

“I could hardly leave you - if it’s half as funny as the last time you did it, it will be worth any wars you might start.”

It was a family legend polished smooth as riverstone by repeated tellings and Fingon knew his own part well. “He started it. He _bit_ me,” he said with exaggerated indignation.

“You stood on poor Huan’s tail and Celegorm has always lacked his hound’s forbearance.” Maedhros’ smile was tired and a little sad and from that Fingon judged it to be a real one. “I’ve missed Huan. My brothers too, of course, but the dog is so much less quarrelsome.”

“He used to let us ride him.” Fingon had really been too old by the time the Maia attached himself to Celegorm but the dog had never minded his weight, or that his feet dragged trails in the dust on either side of him.

“He did. Come, reminiscing about the good times will only make what’s next more painful.” Maedhros held back the tent flap to let in bright sunlight. Standing tall, silhouetted against the dawn he looked, if not entirely like himself then close enough for what must be done.

***

They would not go to the Fëanorian camp, and the Fëanorians would not come to them and so they had arranged to meet upon a rise overlooking the lake, equidistant between them both.

His father did not bring an army but his honour guard was two hundred strong. “These are dangerous times,” he said when Aredhel wondered aloud if that was necessary for a visit to their cousins. “There are orcs and worse abroad.”

“My brothers are hardly _worse_ than orcs. Still, the precautions are sensible; I would hate to be abducted again,” Maedhros said cheerfully. “I only have so many limbs to spare.”

No one could offer a reply to that. And so banners were raised and trumpets blown, their horses kicked into motion. There had been long debate upon the merits of getting there first so that they might be established versus last so that they might force the others to wait. “Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” Fingolfin had said at last. “And while we squabble over the details, still _one_ of us is so. We shall be early.”

Early they were.

The Fëanorians were late.

Fingon’s mare, flighty at the best of times, stamped and mouthed the bit while beside them Aredhel was no less impatient.

“You said you were well enough to ride,” she said to Maedhros who had slackened the reins enough for his quiet grey gelding to crop the grass. They had not spoken since their argument the day before and Fingon prayed they would not pick it up again.

Maedhros gestured to the horse he sat upon. “Did I prove false?” Fingon had offered to let Maedhros ride behind him and had been secretly relieved when he refused. It would be too reminiscent of another ride - blood soaking his tunic, his fingers numb with cold, ragged breaths rattling in his ear, faint enough that each one might be the last.

“I would hardly call this little jaunt _riding_. Care for a true test? See that copse over there? I’ll race you to it. Both of you.”

“Why would you say that, Sister? Why would you force me to be the responsible one?” Fingon cried. With Turgon minding the camp and their father in conference with his lords a hundred yards away, there was no one to restrain them.

Aredhel’s horse skittered sideways, picking up on his rider’s excitement. “What's this? Fingon the Valiant, afraid to lose to his little sister?”

“I could best you were I hogtied over the saddle but it wasn’t me you challenged,” he said, knowing full well that Maedhros would tell them both they were being ridiculous and that would be the end of the matter. He was a little disappointed; it was a pointless, foolish risk but those were his favourite kind.

“Really?” said Maedhros. The look he gave Fingon was shrewd. “Racing? This is a vital diplomatic congress with far reaching political consequences and furthermore _you don’t stand a chance!_ ” That last was called over his shoulder as his horse leapt forwards into a canter. Aredhel crowed in delight and went racing after him and Fingon laughed and gave his horse her head.

There were cries of alarm behind them - _still_ some of their people thought Maedhros more their hostage than their ally - but they were swiftly silenced by his father and then all was swallowed by the rush of wind in his ears. Clods of turf went flying and a startled flock of starlings scattered before them, Fingon’s heart soaring with them. His horse was young and, after the long grey trudge of the Ice, delighted in the freedom to run as much as he did. He urged her on and she snorted, lengthening her stride, and he revelled, as he always did, in the perfect synchronicity of it, the coiling power of the muscles beneath her sleek, bay coat.

Maedhros had the head start and Fingon the better horse but Aredhel was the finer rider and wasn’t hampered by injury or concern for another’s. She pulled ahead, trailed by a crow-cackle of laughter, just as Fingon drew level with Maedhros. His cousin had ducked low in the saddle, lying almost flat against his horse’s neck, his right arm in its sling pulled in tight against his body and his face unreadable, eyes narrowed against the wind.

Aredhel reached the trees nearly a furlong ahead of them and wheeled her horse about sharply enough he reared and danced upon his hind legs. She was gone again just as quickly, darting between them and back towards the main host.

“We’re _not_ racing her back,” Fingon said decisively, reigning up. Maedhros groaned in agreement and slid from the saddle to flop down upon the grass at his horse’s feet. The gelding mouthed at his hair and then stepped away to resume his grazing.

“That was foolish,” he said, looking up at Fingon. The wind had clawed his hair into ridiculous tufts and lent some colour to his face but there was a fine sheen of sweat upon his brow. In pain and trying to hide how much.  

“A terrible idea,” Fingon agreed, dismounting. “What were you thinking? Are you hurt?”

Maedhros ignored the questions. “Do you enjoy the novelty of being the one saying these things rather than hearing them?”

“No, it’s _awful_. This must be what my father feels like all the time.” He tied off his reins and then lay down beside his cousin, shivering at the brush of damp grass against his back. He was not foolish - he had seen the calculation in his cousin’s eyes that belied his cheerful words and knew this for another act, not the reasonable diplomat this time but the light hearted friend. Perhaps it was kindness that stilled his tongue and let him play along or perhaps it was cowardice. Not looking, he reached out a hand and Maedhros’ fingers, cold and dew-damped, brushed and then intertwined with his.

The sky above them was a tired, bruised grey but the sun shone brightly through the cloudbreaks, tracing thin fingers of light across the rolling plains. It wasn’t the jewel-strewn shores of Elendë or the mingling lights of the trees but there was a stark kind of beauty to it still.

“You don’t have to go with them,” Fingon said. “Meet them, yes, but you’re welcome to return with us.”

“And how would that look to them? No, I’ve avoided my responsibilities too long and, whatever you might think of them, I miss them.”

“We should head back then.” They were not so far away but the wind had risen and he could only hear snatches of sound - his father upbraiding Aredhel, the whicker of nervous horses, the whisper of trees in the woods behind them.

“Fingon.” Maedhros’ hand pulled free of his to fumble at his belt. Fingon sat up sharply just as Maedhros drew back, clutching his knife. “There’s something in the trees.”

“It’s too bright for orcs. And my father sent scouts out not an hour ago. Our troops are all about. You’re safe.”

“Nevertheless.” His eyes were dark and vast, the irises barely visible, fear and something like eagerness warring in their depths.

The trees whispered still but perhaps there was something more in the brush of branches and the crackle of undergrowth.

“Get behind me,” Fingon said, rising to draw his sword, and it spoke volumes that Maedhros did as he was bid.

Something was moving through the trees, there was no doubt. Something larger than an orc; a true monster, something he could kill without guilt. His blood drummed in his ears and were his cousin not with him he might have laughed with the joy of it. “Come out,” he sang. “Come face me if you dare.”

The movement stopped. Within the shadows of the thicket golden eyes blazed and the wind ran rank with the stink of predator and rancid meat. Their horses had long since bolted.

“I know what comes,” said Maedhros, his voice gone cool and flat. “Fingon, it’s not what you-”

The creature lunged from the cover of the trees. It was a blur of grey fur, red maw and long, white teeth and it was headed, unerringly, for Maedhros who stood staring, making no effort to evade it.

Fingon spun after it, his blade flicking out, but before he could connect something slammed into his back, knocking the air from his lungs and his feet from under him. He lashed out blindly as they went down and his elbow caught whatever it was in the chest. It bellowed with pain and Fingon scrabbled free of it. Maedhros, pinned beneath the creature’s paws made a choked, helpless noise and Fingon struggled towards him, only for his attacker to seize hold of his ankle and haul him back. His mouth was full of blood and gritty mud and he _kicked_ and felt something crunch beneath his boot.

Raising his sword, struggling to get his legs under him, he turned-

And found himself staring up into Celegorm’s thunderous, gore-streaked face.

They recoiled as one, shuffling backwards on their arses, princely dignity forgotten.

“Fingon, his nose!” Maedhros sobbed. “Ah, _help_ , I can’t _breath_!” He tried to push aside the great dog that was dancing around him, laving his face with its great, slathering tongue, but Huan took no notice which only made him laugh harder.

“Well met, cousin,” Fingon said, failing to conceal his own amusement while Celegorm glared like an angry cat. He glared all the more when Huan turned his slobbery attentions to his master.

Maedhros drew several rapid breaths and, finally, the hysteria that had gripped him seemed to subside a little. “Come now,” he managed. “If you go skulking about in bushes and ambushing people, a broken nose is no less than you deserve. We raised you better than that.”

“He tried to stab Huan!” But Celegorm was as quick to forgive as he was to anger and he was smiling as he said it, his grin made ghastly by the blood filming his teeth.

“Take it as a complement,” said Fingon, brushing mud from his clothes. “Your dog is terrifying!” Huan had not been half so large in Valinor nor, Fingon was sure, had his teeth been quite so sharp. His personality was unchanged though; dignity as the greatest Oromë’s hounds apparently forgotten, he rolled over to expose his belly and whined plaintively for more attention.

“Selfish cur, I’m doing the best I can with one hand,” Maedhros chided him.

Curufin and Amras must have prepared Celegorm for, if he was taken back at his brother’s condition, he gave no sign of it. “Huan missed you, Brother,” he said. “And so did I.” He stepped forwards and drew Maedhros to his feet and into an embrace. Maedhros did not flinch when touched unexpectedly but he did go very still with the effort of not doing so. It was subtle and Fingon doubted anyone but he had noticed it - not Finrod when he raised a hand to Maedhros’ cropped hair and exclaimed that wearing it that short was very fetching, not Thernil when she changed the dressings upon his back, and not Celegorm now.  

“Gently,” Maedhros chided, drawing back. “I’m very fragile, or so Fingon keeps insisting.”

“I wouldn’t have to keep insisting if you ever listened.”

“We’ll take good care of him,” said Celegorm.

Fingon might have bridled at that but Maedhros spoke first. “No doubt,” he said. As suddenly as the mirth had come upon him, it was gone. “What _were_ you doing in that copse?”

Celegorm shrugged. “Scouting.”

“By yourself? Was this on Maglor’s orders?”

“Orders? Maglor is not king.”

“No, I am. And I’m asking you what you were doing and whether you were alone.”

“Not alone.” He met his brother’s eyes and then Fingon’s, unashamed. “Our soldiers are concealed all about. We wished to take no risks where your safety was concerned. We could not countenance another betrayal.”

“ _Another_ betrayal?” Fingon snapped. “That is _very_ rich, cousin-”

“It was a sensible precaution,” Maedhros cut in smoothly. “However unnecessary. And now you must ride to the meeting with us, assuming Fingon didn’t injure you too badly?”

Celegorm glared and Fingon himself was of a mind to argue further but then Maedhros was between them, pressing his knife back into his hand, and Huan had reared to lick the blood from his master’s face and, wordless, they put the quarrel aside.

“I’ve had worse,” Celegorm said, taking hold of his nose and, with a wince and a crunch of gristle, pushed it back into its proper place. “And no doubt will again. They should be arriving soon.” He scrambled up onto Huan’s back. “I’ll catch your horses for you.”

“Well that went better than I’d feared,” said Maedhros while Fingon sheathed his weapons and scrubbed bloody hands upon his tunic. “I hope the rest goes as smoothly.”

***

The Fëanorian honour guard seemed to number half their army and Fingon worried, for a moment, that Maedhros would try to ride straight for them and force him to choose between his father and his friend. King. Celegorm certainly seemed to expect that and was as surprised as Fingon when Maedhros brought his horse to a halt at a place between the two troops and sat back in the saddle, evidently content to wait. Perhaps this separation, this opportunity to place himself in the middle had been his intention when he accepted Aredhel’s challenge or perhaps it was simply instinct; Maedhros had been putting himself between his mother and his father, his father and his uncles, his family and the world most of his life.

There was a disquiet from both sides of the field - he saw Galadriel and Finrod conferring with his father, their blond heads bright against a sea of dark Noldor, while more than a bowshot away Caranthir gestured emphatically and Maglor shook his head. Finally Fingolfin’s trumpets sounded and his father rode out, Aredhel beside him with their blue banner raised high behind her. The Fëanorians set out from the other side, little Celebrimbor as their standard bearer; either they truly did intend to resolve this peacefully or Curufin was very overconfident. Fingon wasn’t sure which was more likely but he loosened his sword in his scabbard all the same.

“You received my letters?” Maedhros said as they waited for the delegations to reach them.

“We did.” Celegorm shot Fingon a wary look. “We weren’t sure that the words were yours.”

“Well my handwriting isn’t what it was. Does Maglor intend to fight me on this? Do you?”

Celegorm licked his bloody lips and looked away. “I’ve missed your sister,” he said which was, Fingon supposed, as much of an answer or an apology as they were likely to get from him.

“She’s sworn to tie you to a tree with your own innards and then use you for target practice,” he put in.

“So she missed me too.” Fingon hated to describe Celegorm’s grin as ‘wolfish’ but that was what it was.

“I won’t miss you, Mutt, have no fear on that count.” His sister was beside him then, windswept and furious, no humour or flirtation in her voice.

Celegorm grinned all the wider at that. His brothers were almost upon them, Maglor at their head, looking much as he had when Fingon had last seen him, when he had cursed him before setting out upon his desperate quest. He was dressed in black, the Fëanorian star picked out upon his chest like an open wound. Bareheaded, his hair lay tangled and wind-tossed upon his shoulders and his eyes were dark and haunted. He looked tragic and poetic and Fingon wondered how much effort had gone into achieving that look.

Beside him Curufin was smiling, sharp and fierce, while Caranthir scowled; the expressions both wore when they were nervous and thought to hide it. Amras was not visible but no doubt he was there, hidden in some thicket with an arrow to his bow as Celegorm had intended to be.

Maedhros raised an arm in greeting - his right - and Fingon, watching Maglor’s face, could see him calculating if it would be more dramatic if he wept. Apparently he decided against it though his eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“You look awful,” Maedhros said and Maglor - eloquent Maglor - made a choked, animal noise and nudged his horse close enough that he could throw his arms about his brother. That at least Fingon thought was spontaneous.

He looked away, to give them their privacy and because he did not want to see that stifled flinch again. He caught his father’s eye and received a complacent, reassuring smile. Fingon knew he hid his feelings well and wondered if the sight of his nephews, proud and undaunted, set his blood roiling with the same hot anger that burnt in Fingon.

He had known them all since their shared childhoods and, though he had always loved Maedhros best, the others had been friends and constants in his life. But there was blood upon the docks, ash upon the shore, a trail of corpses stretching back across the Ice to distant Aman and he could forgive them no more than he could forgive himself.

Maedhros deserved his anger little less but love was a selfish, monstrous thing and even were he stood beside his brothers, uncrippled and unashamed, still Fingon could not hate him for the blood on both their hands.

His antipathy didn’t matter. He owed his people reconciliation and victory. What had he rescued Maedhros for if not this moment? He forced a smile to his own lips and let his fingers relax their death grip upon the reins.

“It would have been better,” Maedhros said, “to settle this without two armies breathing down our necks. But the world is what we’ve made it.”

“With all due respect and gratitude to our uncle,” Maglor said, inclining head in Fingolfin’s direction, “I don’t think the succession is a matter to be decided through correspondence. Or a hasty meeting a muddy field.” A thin, chill rain had begun to fall though Fingon, cold and damp already, had scarcely noticed.

“Perhaps not but I’ll have it done with all the same. We’ve wasted time enough already. The Enemy is stymied by the risen sun - he made his displeasure very clear to me - and every day, every hour counts in our fight against him.”

“It’s true,” Fingon added, “that when I journeyed through the Iron Mountains I found the land near deserted. If we wish to establish ourselves we will not get a better chance.”

“And I am sick of hanging about the camp fighting skirmishes with scouts,” Celegorm said brusquely. “We came here to win a war; if we’d wanted to quarrel with each other we could have stayed in Aman.” He was looking at Aredhel as he spoke and she looked back with the eye of a hunter sizing up her quarry. 

“From someone who has done nothing _but_ quarrel with me since arrival that’s a little rich,” said Maglor. “That aside, I agree that we should strike. I admit we would be wise to coordinate our efforts. I _don’t_ see why you must give up the crown to do it.”

“Our uncle and our cousin have already made gestures towards reconciliation. It falls to us to reciprocate. Besides, don’t you think it will make for a fine song?” Maedhros sighed, his right shoulder twisting awkwardly with the motion of his chest. “The crown does not _matter_.”

“It mattered to our father.” Curufin, unsurprisingly.

“And he died a king,” said Maedhros. He opened his mouth to say more and then bit the words back with such force that Fingon heard his teeth click. “You did bring the crown then?” he asked instead.

“ _Your_ crown,” said Caranthir. “We did.”

“Good. Thank you. Please fetch it.”

Maglow reached into his cloak and drew out a coffer but kept it clutched to his chest. It was elegant silver, unadorned but for the sigils of the Houses of Finwë and Fëanor embossed upon the lid. There was no doubt it was their father’s work.

“This is not a hostage exchange,” said Curufin sharply. “We need not give them-”

“This is not a debate,” said Maedhros. He was smiling still, but there was no diplomacy in it. It was the awful, snarling grimace he had worn when he spoke at their council the day before. “Here.” He rode forwards and held out his left hand to take the casket and suddenly everyone was talking at once.

“Do you think to punish us for-” “If Father could see-” “Any promises our _half_ -uncle has forced from you-” “You’re not well enough to-” “The law says-” “You will regret-”

“The law says I am your elder and your king.” Fingon could no longer see Maedhros’ face but his voice was like a blade and now his brothers did draw back. “I know exactly what I am and I know what I regret. And now I will see this feud mended. _The crown_.”

He reached out again, with hand and bandaged stump. To their credit none of his brothers recoiled but there was a hiss of indrawn breath. Grief and guilt and anger warred on every face and, one by one, they bowed their heads. Where logic held no sway, still anger and force of will might triumph; they had listened to their father after all.

Maedhros took up the box and turned back to them, placid now, the anger passed as swiftly as it had come. There was no dignified way to present it one handed but he did his best, bowing low in the saddle and steadying the coffer with his right forearm. Fingolfin bowed in turn and took it, before handed it off to an attendant so that he could clasp his nephew’s shoulder - the left one. it was a pretty piece of choreography and Fingon wondered when they’d found the time to practice.

“They will take it better from me,” Maedhros had said before they rode out and so Fingolfin had remained silent throughout the confrontation but now he cleared his throat. “The coronation is in a week and I hope you will all attend. We have much to discuss.” His father knew how to judge an audience; simple words, spoken plainly and still the Fëanorians bore them like salt rubbed into a wound. But they bore them all the same.

“Thank you, Uncle. We would be glad to,” Maedhros said, courtly and correct. “And now I think we have matters of our own to discuss. My thanks for your hospitality.”

“My hopes for your continued recovery. Go get yourself out of this awful rain.” He said the last with real warmth, the first part of their exchange that wasn’t clearly rehearsed and Fingon dared to let himself hope that at least one of his aims had been achieved.

But it was not just the feud he sought to mend. He only had moments as Maedhros finished taking leave of his father. Curufin would have been better, with his grasp of cold necessity, or Celegorm and his gruff pragmatism, but one was fussing with his son and the other with his dog and there was no subtle way to draw them aside.

“You need to watch him closely,” he said, sidling his horse over to Caranthir.

“Why?” his cousin said, too loudly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 _He fears his will is not his own. He wishes he were dead._ “He…He is not yet so well as he pretends.”

Caranthir scowled at him from beneath dark brows. “We aren’t fools, Fingon. We’ve been here thirty years and we know well the damage that the Enemy can wreak.”

Fingon fought down the urge to remind him whose fault those thirty years of strife had been.

“And we know our brother,” Caranthir went on, harsh voice softening. “We will see to him. He’ll do better in the care of those that love him.” From another of them it might have been a deliberate barb. From Caranthir it was likely his usual failure to think before he spoke and so Fingon smiled and nodded and did not knock him from his saddle.

“Cousin,” Maedhros said, and Fingon hoped he had not overheard. “I’ll see you soon.” It was halfway between a statement and a question.

“Of course. It’s only a week apart.” Fingon wanted to draw him into his arms as his brothers had done, to brush the rumpled hair from his forehead, to press his face to his chest and listen to his heart beating beneath layers of rain-damp wool. But his cousin would tolerate it all with quiet stoicism and a false smile and the thought of that made Fingon ill. He wouldn’t be another imposition. Instead he extended his left arm and let Maedhros make the move to clasp it.

“Thank you. For everything.” His cousin did not look distressed but Fingon could feel the prick of his nails through the wet fabric of his tunic, so desperate was the grip. It might well bruise. If Maedhros asked it of him then he would follow him. He had followed him to Angband, what was the Fëanorian camp compared to that?

But Maedhros did not ask. He released his hand and smiled his empty smile and turned away, the ranks of his brothers closing up behind him.

 _Courage_ , Fingon told himself and turned, and rode back to his camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idgaf if Celegorm doesn’t canonically ride around on Huan like Luthien does, if you had a magical dog big enough to ride you’d fucking ride him don’t lie to me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those that missed it, [The Seas Incarnadine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6394735) is a semi-prequel about Maedhros' time in Angband. Not required reading by any means but gives some context for his actions and opinions in this (and the previous) chapters.

On the day of the coronation it rained. Their tents were weatherproof of course, but they’d been made in haste, designed to protect against the cold before all else and so it was that Fingon was woken long before dawn by an insidious drip of cold water drumming on his forehead. Likely his nerves would have dragged him from his bed regardless, but it did little for his mood.

The ceremony itself would be dry at least; the royal pavilion, where the House of Finwë convened for breakfast, was oiled silk that had survived the trip from Aman. There was no sign of their father and so Fingon and Aredhel squabbled over the fruit preserves as they had for time immemorial while Turgon feigned exasperation. Finarfin’s children joined them, resplendent despite the weather; Finrod, rainbow jewels dripping from his fingers, his ears, his neck, looked more a king than his father, his uncle, even his grandfather ever had.

“Is the camp likely to flood?” Fingon asked, licking hard-won strawberry jam from his fingers and looking out at the grey haze. He could barely see the next tent over.

“We dug drainage ditches,” said Idril. “And they’ll work. _I_ supervised.”

“It’s not likely to be a problem,” Turgon agreed, brushing porridge from her golden curls. “At least not logistically. It does not look well though, after all that fuss we made about the rising sun being a herald of our victory. Our best predictions said the weather would clear but it’s showing no sign of it.”

“The rain will pass,” Galadriel said. She did not elaborate but she did not truly need to. If she said it, it was likely so.

“And even if it doesn’t I have a thought to warm you in its place,” said Aredhel. “The Fëanorians will have to ride over in this. It’s hard to look kingly when you’re dripping on the carpet.” She wrung out her own hair to demonstrate.

“If they bring Huan this ceremony is going to be unbearable,” said Finrod sadly. “I despise the smell of wet dog.”

“He shan’t stink worse than his master.” Aredhel wrinkled her nose. “That _idiot_! can you believe that he attacked you?”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Fingon lied. “The only thing to take harm was his own dignity.”

“His dignity will be the least of his worries next time I see him. He still hasn’t apologised. For anything.”

“If you’re waiting for an apology, little sister, you’ll be waiting a long time,” said Turgon. “The sons of Fëanor have necks so stiff it’s a wonder they can bend to put their boots on.”

Galadriel liked to pretend herself too dignified for their jokes and arguments but she had a weakness where their cousins and late uncle were concerned. “It’s not their necks that are the problem, it’s the sticks shoved up their arses.”

Fingon choked on his tea and hoped the ensuing coughing fit would explain the redness of his face. Aredhel and Finrod opened their mouths, both no doubt intending to say something even coarser about Fëanorian arses, and Turgon covered Idril’s ears in anticipation.

“It makes riding decidedly uncomfortable, I admit,” said Maedhros Fëanorion, ducking in through the tent flaps, his brothers and a bedraggled herald following at his heels. “Good morning, cousins.”

“I’m sorry my lords, my ladies,” said the herald. “It didn’t seem proper to ask them to wait outside to be announced with the weather what it is.”

The Fëanorians wore their father’s colours, silks and velvets in shades of flame and blood. They were proud and beautiful and fierce, shining circlets upon their brows, swords at their hips and fire in their eyes that shone brighter than any jewel.

Any jewel save three.

“We did not expect you so soon,” Fingon said lamely.

“Evidently,” said Curufin with a delicate curl of his lip. Fingon supposed the tone was warranted though the affectation of cool disdain was rather spoilt by his waterlogged clothes and the rat's tail tangle of his hair.

Galadriel rose to her feet, her dignity wrapped around her like a cloak. “Please excuse me, cousins, but my brother was right; the stench is more than I can bear.”

“She’s one to talk of sticks,” said Celegorm as she stalked past him. “Never mind her hair, you’d think Laurelin’s light shone out her-” Huan, ever more tactful than his master, sat down upon his foot and the jibe ended in a yelp.

“Is there tea?” Maedhros said loudly over the cursing. “I would give my right arm for a cup.”

That embarrassed everyone into quieting long enough for servants to draw up more chairs and whisk away wet cloaks. Fingon took the opportunity to study his cousin as he took the seat across from him and accepted a cup from one of the servants with a murmur of thanks. Maedhros wore a dark red tunic that would have brought out the copper in his hair were it not darkened by rainwater. He alone had not dressed as a king; the discreet silver embroidery at the neck and cuffs coupled with the minimal jewellery were as much a statement as his brothers’ finery. Fingon, in peacock blue, gold in his hair and sparkling upon his fingers, felt almost as gaudy as Finrod in comparison. Maedhros had gained back a little more weight - still too thin but the better fitting clothes made it less obvious. Even the ruin of his left cheek looked less hollowed out, less _wrong_ than it had the last time Fingon had seen him.

“Your face looks different.” He wasn’t named ‘the Tactful’ after all.

“No longer stoved in like an old pan, you mean?” Unoffended, Maedhros drew back his upper lip with a gloved finger to show the gleam of metal and pale ivory. “Curufin’s work.”

“They have forgiven you then?” Fingon asked, a furtive glance confirming Curufin was sufficiently distracted by getting a wriggling Celebrimbor out of his wet cloak.

“I’m not sure they ever will but Curufin is a craftsman first and foremost. To see a flaw in the world that he might mend nags at him like - hah - a missing tooth.”

“I’m glad.”

“No less than I. Subsisting on soup is terribly boring. As is talking about myself. What of you, Fingon? How is your arm?”

“It does not pain me.” The cut had closed cleanly though it itched abominably and it was a constant battle not to pick at it, though he could hardly say that to Maedhros.

“So stoic. I have a gift for you anyway,” Maedhros said, pulling a small clay jar from his pocket and handing it across the table. “It ought to help with the scarring - I haven’t noticed any difference myself but I suppose these things take time.”

Fingon opened it to find a salve that smelt, not entirely pleasantly, of honey and vinegar. “Curufin again?”

“Amras actually - he’s more skilled with medicines, not that either of them will ever admit it. Take it,” he said when Fingon hesitated. “Let one of us stay pretty.”

“I’ve never minded scars,” Fingon said quietly.

Maedhros looked away, down to the table where his hand rested over his teacup so that the rising steam swirled between his fingers. “I hope you’d be less reckless if you did. But you are crown prince - or will be in a matter of hours - and appearances matter, to your subjects if not yourself.”

“Your father spent half his life in a sooty leather apron with no shirt beneath it,” Fingon said, groping for any way to change the subject and realising, as Maedhros’ smile flickered, that he had not picked the wisest topic.

“And we all know what _your_ father said about him,” Caranthir said, looming at Fingon’s shoulder. How could someone so loud move so quietly?

“We do and so I see little point in bringing it up. Sit down, little brother. Did Maeasson bake those seed cakes?” Maedhros said, gesturing to a plate. “You always did love his cooking.”

Maeasson had fallen to privation upon the Ice and Fingon would have dearly loved to say so. _Crown prince_ he reminded himself and offered the platter to Caranthir, his jaw set so firmly that his teeth ached. Even one moment of tea and talking almost normally was too much to ask.

Caranthir ignored the plate but did sit as instructed, dropping a waterproof map case on the table, nearly upsetting the teapot. He snatched it up before it could fall though not before is slopped a dark streak of liquid across the pale, varnished wood. “Manners!” Maedhros said mildly.

“Get on with it,” Caranthir said, gruff with embarrassment or gruff because he knew no other way to speak; Caranthir was so often rude and so often embarrassed it was hard to know the cause.

Rolling his eyes for Fingon’s benefit, Maedhros turned to where Tugon sat with his daughter. “We’ve been surveying the surrounding area and I was hoping to speak to an expert on improving our fortifications.”

“I’d be happy to discuss them with you,” Turgon said curtly, sounding anything but.

Maedhros raised his eyebrows in a mockery of consternation. “I suppose you will suffice, though it was Idril’s wisdom I had intended to seek.”

That stole some of Turgon’s stiffness; as much as he despised flattery directed at himself, he was incapable of resisting complements to his daughter however patently untrue.

“May I?” Idril said, half scrambling onto the table in her eagerness to open the tube.

“By all means, my lady,” Maedhros said though, rather than leaning in to look at the tube’s contents as everyone else had, he drew back from her as if from a flame. Idril didn’t notice, too absorbed in shifting plates and tureens to pin the curling edges of the map.

This time it was Fingon that leapt to catch the teapot as the table shook and rattled beneath her weight. It was a fragile, porcelain thing, decorated with blue flowers and he wondered how it had survived the Ice and who had bothered to carry it with them. He set it down out of the way glancing about the tent and noting with no small relief that no one was actively engaged in combat. Aredhel and Celegorm were arguing, yes, but he could see no weapons which for the two of them was positively civil. Finrod had drawn Curufin into discussion of a loose setting on one of his rings - Fingon shot him a grateful look and he winked ostentatiously. Maglor, diplomatic as ever, was engaged in a polite if not particularly enthusiastic conversation with Orodreth and a silent Amras. It had been not ten minutes of fragile peace but Fingon let himself hope.

“-would command a good view from here,” said Turgon, sliding the salt cellar into position. “I don’t think a watchtower is ambitious enough, rather we should build a fort, something which would allow us to control the entire pass.”

“I can see the wisdom in that,” Maedhros said. “But I’m not sure we have the resources to keep something so large supplied. At least not yet.”

“How many horses do you have?” said Idril. The question might have been related to the supplies issue or might have been because she was very young and very fond of horses.

“Not as many as we’d like. Two hu-”

“Don’t tell them that,” said Caranthir.

“ _Two hundred_ from Valinor,” Maedhros said pointedly. “Plus near a thousand traded from the Sindar or bred ourselves.”

“ _We_ ,” said Fingon, in the spirit of sharing, “have less than two score. The crossing was not kind to them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caranthir’s skin should have been too dark to show his angry flush and yet somehow he managed it. “Is a crown not apology enough?”

“Cousins, we would be happy to come to an arrangement regarding the horses,” said Maglor, looking glad of the excuse to break from his conversation with Orodeth. “In fact amongst the gifts we brought for our uncle’s coronation are-”

“I’m not sure,” said Turgon, cold as the wind upon the Ice, “that you have apologised at all.”

“Maedhros already has,” Fingon said quickly. “We consider the matter settled.”

“ _Did_ he now? Did you do something about that stick, Fingon?” Curufin drawled. He shuffled Celebrimbor out of his lap so that he could rise freely should he need to.  

“Do you expect us to grovel?” snapped Caranthir, pushing back his chair and coming to his feet. Turgon stood with him, taller by half a head, and Aredhel and Celegorm leapt up too, while Amras, still seated, let his hand drift down to the knife at his belt. Idril cringed as the table rattled beneath her and the cups slopped tea onto their map. The teapot teetered for the third time and Maedhros leant to catch it, reaching instinctively with the wrong hand. His wrist nudged it and he recoiled, hissing, while the pot fell to shatter on the floor with a crash and a burst of tea and ruined crockery.

“Oh. _Damn_ ,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t valuable,” said Fingon, not knowing or caring if that was true, only a little saddened at the thought that it had survived so much only to shatter here. He glared at Turgon who sat, chastened, and drew Idril into his lap. Aredhel gestured to the servants - they had been keeping well back from the brewing argument - and one hurried forwards to clean up the mess.

There was a hushed, awkward bustle as the royal family collected itself and pretended that it hadn’t been on the verge of a shouting match. Caranthir’s flush was certainly due to embarrassment this time and Fingon hoped that it would keep him quiet.

Maedhros’ foot nudged him beneath the table. “There are only so many times they’re going to fall for that,” he whispered, grey eyes flicking to the shards of crockery. “Where’s your father? If he doesn’t get here soon I’m going to be forced to feign hysteria to distract them. Or,” he added with a dark glance at Caranthir, “perhaps I shall become hysterical in truth.”

“I’ll go find him. Try to hold out.”

“Send a serva- Fingon, don’t you _dare_ ,” Maedhros hissed, but discretion was the better part of valor and Fingon sprinted out into the rain to find his king.

  
***

The floor of his father’s tent was a mosaic of robes in a hundred shades of blue and Fingon had to pick his way carefully between pools of cobalt silk and puddles of midnight velvet to reach him.

His father sat before his silver mirror, the crown in his hands and his unbound hair spilling down his back. “I’ve worked all my life for this and now, holding it in my hands, I wonder what on earth I was thinking,” he said, addressing Fingon’s reflection. “A pretty band of jewels and metal and yet it has been the breaking of every man to wear it.”

Fingon swallowed. It was his father’s place to provide comfort and council, not his own. “Grandfather’s reign was long and wise. And it was not the crown that killed him.”

“No, it was his pride, which was my brother’s downfall also.” Fingolfin frowned at himself. “I have never lacked for pride myself.”

That was something of an understatement. Fingon picked up a swatch of sky blue samite and let it run through his fingers, the slick cloth catching on the calluses on his palms. He placed it down on the bed. “Our uncle was mad by the end - all could see it but him. That will not be you. If nothing else you have raised three clever children to stand between you and your own destruction. We could swear that we will take no oaths on your account but…” He smiled a little. His father didn’t.

Fingolfin placed the crown down upon a side table and turned to face his son. “When I imagined my coronation I always hoped my brothers would be there to witness it. Finarfin I miss dearly and Fëanor I wanted in the front row, his face all twisted up with spite the way it always was whenever the attention was on someone other than him. But that is a petty, unworthy thought.”

“You will be a better king than he ever was.”

“You are my son and heir; how could you say otherwise?” But his father was smiling as he said it. “Fingon. There’s porridge in your hair.”

“Ah!” Fingon swatted at it ineffectually. “I came to fetch you for the first challenge to your rule; breakfast with our cousins.”

“I assume you don’t meen Finrod and his siblings,” said his father, rising and stepping to Fingon’s side to help. “Hold still- there. I suppose it would not be fitting for me to start my reign by hiding under the bed? No? Very well, send in Caraspen to help me dress and let them know I’ll be with them momentarily.”

“Of course. My liege.” Fingon bowed ostentatiously low to make his father smile again. “I’ll ensure that no one dies in the interim.”

  
***

Sprinting back towards the pavilion, Fingon was relieved to see that nothing was on fire. A reason to be thankful for the rain. He slowed - the footing was treacherous - and then slowed further when he heard angry voices coming from behind the tent to his left.

He should have announced himself. The line of Finwë did not skulk about, eavesdropping from the shadows but then they also did not murder their friends and neighbours so what was one more break with tradition? He peered around the tent, trusting to the rain and his thick, hooded cloak for concealment.

“-tell you again. Did Grandfather teach you nothing?” said one of the men. Even had Fingon not recognised his voice, his height and the sling left no doubt as to his identity. “ A king’s first duty must be to his people and that will never be so for any of us.”

“I know that as well as you. Were it not for _duty_ , the moment we received their demands I would have-” The other speaker cut himself off sharply. Maglor, his voice sweet and musical even when flustered. “We are reclaiming the Silmarils for the good of all Noldor. Did we not come to Beleriand to build a kingdom in their light?”

“We did. But until we have them we are bound and we must not bind our people with us.”

“If this were truly about the oath I would tell you that, though we swore, the House of Fëanor is more than the six of us. Our nephew is free of it. He is young, yes, but he would have advisors-”

“Advisors?” Maedhros laughed. “No doubt he would. Is this Curufin’s idea or yours? Either way, it is a monstrous thing to do to a child.”

“ _But_ ,” Maglor went on as though he had not heard. “This is not about the oath. Or reconciliation or duty or any of the thousand justifications you’ve given - were any one of those your reason I might agree with you. No, you are doing this because you are afraid and want the crown as far from yourself as you can get it. You are not acting rationally-”

Maedhros laughed again, louder and less controlled. “Do you want to hear something funny? They crushed my fingers and plucked out the nails but - this is the good part - only on my _right_ hand. Now you’re the wordsmith, tell me, is that ironic or merely serendipitous?”

There was a silence. When Maglor broke it his voice was tight. “You can’t end every argument like that.”

“We play the hand we’re dealt, little brother.”

“ _Don’t_. I will support you, in this as in all else, but I love you too well to hold my tongue. There is still time for you to call off the coronation and give yourself a chance to _think_ about what you’re doing.”

“Your opinion has been noted. If that is all…?”

“I suppose it is. Until the ceremony.” Maglor bowed, perfunctory, and strode away, boots squelching dully through the mire.

Maedhros remained where he was, watching his brother’s retreat, his left hand clutching tight at the stump of his right wrist, his knuckles white. He made no move to head back inside, though long minutes passed, and he was not wearing a cloak.

Fingon could watch no more and stepped out from behind the tent with an affected air of nonchalance and a cheery cry of “enjoying the weather?”

“Fingon!” Maedhros turned to greet him, his hand relaxing and his face gone so effortlessly cheerful that Fingon would never have suspected there had been an argument had he not witnessed it.

“Is all well?” He nodded in the direction Maglor had fled.

“Oh everything’s a production with Maglor. He wants to compose a song about your heroics upon the mountain. I told him he should ask your permission and he went off about artistic integrity.” Maedhros lied so easily now. Or perhaps he always had and Fingon had never caught him at it when they were children.

“He can’t!” Fingon said, playing along as gamely as he could. He began to walk in the direction of the pavilion, and was relieved when Maedhros followed without comment.

“It’s Maglor. He wrote one about Alqualondë.”

Knowing what he knew of his cousin, that much might be true. “Oh, that’s tasteless even for him.”

“He calls it ‘the Fall of the Noldor,’ if you can believe it. I almost throttled him with his own harpstrings the first time he played it. So as these things go it’s not such a bad idea. You _were_ very heroic-”

“Heroic indeed!” Careful not to touch him, Fingon ushered his cousin under the inadequate cover of the pavilion’s atrium. “Do you think he’ll include the bit where my knife slipped and I almost cut my own hand off?”

“-and I’m sure I swooned into your arms very prettily-”

“You screamed until you retched.”

“I _am_ sorry about that tunic. Then Thorondor, majestic in the rays of the setting sun-”

“It was noon, that bird was terrifying and he stank like the bottom of an aviary.”

“Fingon the Ungrateful they should call you! And I doubt he smelt worse than I did.”

“True,” Fingon said. Maedhros was still smiling but it was a sharp, unlovely thing, nothing like the smile a handsome boy had once worn in Valinor and nothing like the one he had so clearly practised in a mirror so that the twist and pull of scar tissue would not render it grotesque. This one looked real. “I’ve missed you.”

“It hasn’t been so long.” Maedhros ran his hand through his hair, as though it was only now he had noticed how wet it was.

Fingon resisted the urge to reach out and smooth the spiky clumps back down. “I don’t mean these last few days. I miss all the things we used to do together. Stealing Grandfather’s wine and getting drunk on the palace roof. Putting frogs in our brothers’ shoes. Going hunting and staying out days longer than we meant to because we lost track of time-”

“Lost track of time? Is that how you remember it? _We_ were lost, Fingon.”

“You said you knew exactly where we were!”

“And I was a liar even then,” Maedhros said glibly. Did he know that Fingon had heard? Surely not. “Why did you think I kept insisting we look for ‘ore samples’? I didn’t want you to panic.”

“I carried those rocks miles for you.”

“And I treasure every last pebble, I promise. They’re all back in my rooms in-” He sighed. Rallied. “I think I saw some frogs in the reeds down by the shore and Caranthir has been tiresome as of late.”

“Sorry to say, I don’t think we’ll have the time.”

“They’ll be there after the ceremony, frogs and brothers both. Only a few more hours to live through,” Maedhros said, his smile gone false again.

  
***

The sun did shine as predicted. When his father rose, the crown upon his head, the rain faltered and the clouds fell away to reveal a sky as blue as his banners. Galadriel looked smug and there was a small amount of huffing and eye rolling from the Fëanorians but his father looked regal and dignified and so very proud that Fingon could not help but beam.

Everyone, even the Fëanorians, bowed at the appropriate time and afterwards only Maedhros failed to applaud though did, as he joked later, answer a philosophical quandary in so doing.

There was feasting afterwards, and music and dancing. The food was not as plentiful as in Valinor nor the finery so resplendent but they were Noldor after all and there was much that could be done with dried caribou meat, seal leather and a little ingenuity.

The crown prince might have been expected to take up his harp but this was a night for reconciliation and so King Fingolfin called his nephew up to sit beside him and play and sing of glories past and yet to come. Maglor did not, to Fingon’s relief, sing the Noldolantë or of Thangorodrim, but kept to pretty songs and ballads from the west, tired phrasing and trite sentimentality given new meaning by the sincerity of his voice.

Fingon would have left at that but he knew his duties well and so he danced with the daughters of his father’s lords and jested with their sons, or danced with the sons and jested with the daughters - it made little difference so long as he was charming and visibly so. He might have enjoyed himself if it hadn’t been for his cousins - and even his own siblings for he could not trust them to keep the peace - lurking at the edges of his awareness.

Thankfully there was no further trouble; they knew the battle lost and all seemed resigned to it or at least prepared to bide their time. Caranthir came over to tell Fingon his earrings were ugly and made him look like a bat, then pressed a pair of silver studs into his hands. They were lovely things fashioned in the shape of eagles so detailed they looked about to take flight. Fingon smiled graciously and accepted what he assumed was a peace offering in what he imagined was the spirit it had been intended and Caranthir stalked off again, seemingly satisfied.

When the light began to fail and his feet were blistered and his head swimming with wine and empty chatter, he slipped outside in search of fresh air and peace.

The sunset was not the mingled light of the Trees but it was beautiful all the same, a fire kindled upon the western horizon that scorched the drifting clouds with reds and oranges. He watched it and quite pointedly did not think of burning ships.

From somewhere in the darkness he heard his sister’s cackling laugh and a male voice whining in what he honestly hoped was pain. Ducking away down a canvas alleyway to avoid them, he tripped over a pile of shields abandoned upon the marshy sward and almost went down on top of them.

“Watch yourself, sir,” called Ninaeldis, a trifle late. She and some twenty others of his soldiers were sat about a brazier not far away, warming their hands and picking at the leftovers of a feast of their own.

“Ho, my liege!” said Ýreth, voice warm and slow with alcohol. “Come let us toast your victory. Unless our crown prince has loftier gatherings to attend?”

Fingon should really have scolded them for the poor treatment of their equipment. He did not. “It’s a poor prince who does not make time for the concerns of his people. Move over, loyal subject, and pass me the bottle.”

There were good natured cheers and someone handed him a jug of throat-searing crabapple cider - the lords might drink what wine had come with them out of the west but for the soldiers they must be content with what they could make themselves from forage.

“Play us something, sir,” said serious Pelilasson.

“And compete with my talented cousins? If it’s music you want, you’ll find better in the pavilion where Maglor holds court.”

Ýreth snorted. “We want Fëanorian music little more than we wanted a Fëanorian king. No false modesty, my prince, take up your harp!”

“Well since you ask so nicely.” He had it with him, of course, though there had been no cause to play since the mountain and he was half-drunk besides. His first few notes rang flat and even once he’d picked up the tune he carried it clumsily enough that his tutors in Tirion would have been horrified. But Maethel picked up the melody upon a reed flute and Ýreth dragged Ninaeldis to her feet and into a clumsy jig. Their shadows danced with them and then others of his people leapt up to spin and stamp and sing some ancient, bawdy song. No one knew all the words and those they did remember, no one could agree on but enthusiasm served well in place of skill or knowledge - hadn’t Fingon based his life upon that principle? - and this was imperfect Beleriand. In the light of their bonfire, with his friends and soldiers laughing about him, his father’s plans all come to fruition, none of it seemed to matter.

Fingon played until his fingers were cramped and aching and then put the harp aside and lay back against the cold, damp grass. The brazier’s light and smoke blotted out the stars and he would likely catch a chill but he could not yet find the will to move.

A soldier, still in his mail hauberk, plopped to the ground beside him in a clatter of steel.

“I thought you were on watch?” said Hadlath, passing over a bottle..

“The cripple king ordered me away. I wasn’t inclined to argue.” The man - Rawon, it sounded like - coughed. “Manwë’s feathery balls, this stuff is vile.” He swigged again.

Fingon sat up and Rawon exploded into a coughing fit. “Begging your pardon, my lord,” he said when he could speak again, his eyes streaming.

Rawon had lost a lover to the seas and so Fingon let the insult go. “What was my cousin doing upon the walls?” he asked neutrally.

“He didn’t say, sir. Sir, we followed _you_ across the Ice and I don’t see that we should take orders from him.”

“No indeed. I’ll speak with him now. A good evening to you all.” Fingon got to his feet, wincing at his forgotten blisters, and walked away from the circle of firelight, his soldiers’ farewells ringing in his ears.

  
***

He found Maedhros standing atop the wall upon north-facing parapet, leaning out over the sheer drop to the staked trenches below. He had his right arm wrapped around a flagpole for balance and a jug in his left hand.

“Fingon,” he said without turning. Flat and tired. What had it come to that it was a relief to hear his cousin openly unhappy?

“Should you be up here?”

“I doubt it. But I’ve had a bellyfull of ‘shoulds’ and a bellyfull of this-” he held up the decanter “-whatever ‘this’ is, and find myself past caring.”

Fingon reached up and took the jug - near empty - and swigged from it, his free hand held ready to grab for his cousin if he overbalanced. Or stepped out. Raw alcohol burned his throat and made his eyes water. “Rawon said you sent him from his post.”

“That’s so. It’s difficult to feel truly maudlin when there’s a guardsman picking his nose five feet away.” Maedhros took back the flask, drained it and then, abruptly, let it drop. The tinkling of pottery rose up from beneath them like a song. “I don’t want you to see me drunk and wallowing in self pity. I wish you hadn’t come.”

“I think you’re entitled to a _little_ self pity. Come down,” he added hastily as Maedhros leant out further, staring down at the broken shards. “I’m getting a sore neck looking up at you.”

Maedhros smiled his awful smile and hopped down onto the walkway, stumbling a little, clearly drunker than Fingon had first thought. “I swore to myself that I’d hold together until after the coronation. _Some_ oaths I can keep.”

“It’s all done with now. You needn’t pretend for me.”

“Should I fall, weeping, into your arms then?” Maedhros stepped closer, close enough that Fingon could feel his breath upon his cheek, sharp with alcohol. He shivered and Maedhros smiled to see it.

“If you think it would help.”

“I doubt it. I’ve never been much for tears.” He looked away to the north where the sky was cut by the black jags of the mountains. “Maglor’s right,” he said at length. “It will make a good song. Your father will be a good king.” He closed his eyes. “I’m tired.”

“You’re drunk. I’ll see you to your bed.”

“Will you?” Maedhros made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh. “You’re so dependable. But it’s not a bed I need. I did not come up here for the view. I’m not so strong as I thought.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Fingon said. A lie. They were both liars.

“You do.” Maedhros opened his eyes again. They were silvered by the moonlight, dark and deep enough to drown in. “Please. It’s like you said; I’ve asked you twice for help. The third time pays for all.”

“No.” He’d known Maedhros was hurting and unhappy but he’d been healing. Fingon had _saved_ him. 

“I’d do it myself if I could. But I swore an oath.” Left-handed, Maedhros reached out to brush a loose tendril of hair back from Fingon’s face and let his fingers linger, resting upon his cheek. His touch burned as though with fever. “Fingon. _Fingon_. If you love me, if you have ever loved me-”

Love, Fingon thought, was a selfish, monstrous thing. “ _No_ ,” he said.

Maedhros nodded as though he had expected as much. “Well then,” he said. And then his hand fisted in Fingon’s hair and he drove his knee into his gut.

Fingon gasped and staggered, more shocked than hurt. But he was Fingon the Valiant, not the Wise or the Kind, and so before the pain had even registered his own hand was curled into a fist.

He swung - his full strength behind it - and caught Maedhros in the jaw, snapping his head around and sending him reeling back against the parapet.

Fingon was afraid to look at his face, to see his eyes gone blank and dead as Dineneth’s had been. But when Maedhros straightened there was no lack of expression there, rather the opposite; his eyes were a horror of rage and pain, everything he had kept hidden exposed like maggots writhing in an opened corpse.

He grinned or snarled and came on again, and Fingon met him with his fists because perhaps Maedhros needed this or perhaps Fingon was angry too, had been angry for thirty years. He had been abandoned and betrayed and _failed_ and now this. The rest he might forgive but how could anyone that loved him ask him _this_?

His elbow caught his cousin in the side where he _knew_ there was a wound half-healed, and Maedhros muffled his cry of pain by sinking his teeth into Fingon’s neck. Their legs tangled and they both went down - Fingon remembered himself enough to ensure he hit the ground first, taking the brunt of the impact.

Maedhros got his right forearm across Fingon’s throat and pressed down, all his weight behind it, and for a moment, as his vision darkened, Fingon was almost afraid. But he was stronger and heavier and had two hands besides. He punched Maedhros in the side, the same place as before, and, when his cousin gasped and slackened his grip, Fingon rolled them over and straddled his hips, pinning his wrists above his head.

Maedhros bucked against him but a half-starved crippled stood little chance against a healthy man and finally he snarled with frustration and slammed his own head back against the wood. “What does it _take_?” he said, the words coming out as a sob.

Fingon said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

Maedhros struggled beneath him once more, a final, hopeless surge of defiance, and then went still. “You never should have come.”

“And yet I did. I always will.” He was a hero after all, renowned amongst the princes of the Noldor.

His anger was as swiftly cooled as kindled and he relaxed his grip - being pinned so was doubtless painful for Maedhros’ arm - but didn’t move to get off him. Maedhros did not attack him again but lay quiet, trembling a little with cold or the aftermath of violence. His face was pale and there was blood on his lips, Fingon’s or his own.

All words of comfort or reassurance Fingon might offer sounded trite or shallow even to himself. He could speak of duty, of the oath, of Maedhros’ little brothers, but that would be far too cruel. He had wished, often enough, for a way that he could help, a use for courage and a sharp blade. Well here it was.

But his knife stayed in its sheath. “I said you were entitled to a little self pity but this is ridiculous,” he said, his stomach aching, his neck torn and bloody. “You’ve always been an embarrassing drunk.”

Maedhros stared at him, pale and fey and desperate, for a long, long time. And Fingon _saw_ his face close up, the terror and the anger and the hurt vanish behind that practiced, pasted on smile. He began to laugh and Fingon laughed with him; his gut ached so badly he could scarcely draw breath but that only made him laugh the harder.

“You’re right,” Maedhros said when they could speak again. “You’re right, what was I thinking? This is worse than the time we tried to distill our own mead and I drank two jars and vomited under the dining table.”

Fingon rolled over to lie on the planking at Maedhros’ side. “And then Huan ate it. And threw up over that rug your grandmother wove and I’ve never _seen_ your father so angry-”

“I think he was angrier then than he was when he had your father held at swordpoint.”

“Surely! Angrier than when Morgoth killed Grandfather Finwë.”

“If the Enemy had stolen that rug and not the Silmarils, he might have torn down the walls of Angband barehanded to get it back.”

“Can you imagine the oath you would have taken over that?” It wasn’t funny. None of it was funny. But they could joke or Fingon could take up his knife. “What now?” he said more soberly.

“I think I’m too drunk to make it down the stairs.” Wincing, Maedhros pulled himself up to sit leaning against the battlements. “And too sore - you’re stronger than you know.”

“Do you need a healer?”

“You’re not _that_ strong.”

“Don’t start fights you can’t win.”

“You’d think I would have learnt by now.” Maedhros held out his hand. “Stay with me. The night’s not so cold and the sunrise will be lovely. If they’d had them while I was hanging upon that mountain, it would still have been unbearable but marginally less so.”

Fingon thought that their views of what ‘not so cold’ entailed were somewhat skewed but he took the hand and let Maedhros draw him over to sit beside him, bodies not quite touching.

There was a way to mend this. There had to be. For the orcs and for Dineneth and all the people like her that he had not saved. They’d come to build a better world and he would start with this.

“I’m sorry,” Maedhros whispered, sounding half asleep already. “I didn’t mean any of it. I’m glad you came. I’m strong enough for this.”

“I know,” said Fingon. They were both liars after all.

***

“We are outnumbered,” Ýreth said. She tugged back her coif to run a hand through hair spiked with sweat and blood.

“We shan’t be for long,” said Fingon. The mud came to his shins, the corpses of their dead the only safe footing to be found. That had ceased to bother him long hours ago. “There are only two thousand of them by my reckoning.”

“And we have near a tenth of that! It is hardly fair,” she said with weary humour.

“I could take them all alone but I fear you would be frightfully bored.”

No one laughed. There was no joy in this, no honour, no glory. Still his soldiers stood with him, grim faced, their bright steel dimmed with blood and grime. Still they would die for him. That had also ceased to bother him.

“What of my brother?” he asked, adjusting the lie of his helmet. It was dented and no longer sat right.

“Withdrawn, with all his host about him.”

“Good. And Maedhros?”

“The Fëanorians won free. I don’t know that he lives-”

“He does. He must. He swore an oath.” Whatever happened next, he had salvaged _something_. They could not take that away.

“As you say. My king, what are your orders?”

“With me, all of you. Ýreth, Gulben, Hadlath. Everyone. Remember why we came.”

Ýreth pulled her coif back down. “To beat some sense into your idiot uncle?”

“Picture all the orcs as Fëanor if it helps. But no.” Beneath his feet, his dead stared up with pale, accusing eyes. The tide of battle was shifting. They did not have time. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you all for your service.”

Fingon the Valiant raised his sword and went to meet his death.

**Author's Note:**

> Whelp!
> 
> I'm on tumblr in the [obvious place](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com)! Some quick author's notes for the last chapter [here](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com/post/142762078717/for-the-sake-of-prisoners-and-the-flight-of-birds).


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